The genus Iconella in the New World

Yesterday I was happy to see a paper I co-authored to come out in Zookeys. It is a review of the genus Iconella in the New World. The paper can be freely downloaded here.

Iconella canadensis, a new species described from North America (Canada).

The main reason I am happy to see that paper out is not for the paper per se -nor I am writing this post "to promote" the reading of that manuscript. What I am interested to mention here is the integrative approach that we used in that work:

1- Extensive use of illustrations to show morphological characters.

2- Extensive use of parasitoid biology (host data).

3- Extensive use of molecular data (DNA barcoding).

4- Morphological study of species -i.e. "traditional taxonomy".

5- Use (and illustration) of geographic distribution of species.

6- Generation of descriptions via an automated system (Lucid software). 

More pictures of Canadian species of Microgastrinae

For the past two months I have been really busy finishing a large paper on Apanteles from Mesoamerica -which will be mentioned in a future post here. During that time I have received invaluable help from many people, and without them I would not be able to finish the job, not even close. Two of the most helpful among my long list of "guardian angels" have been Caroline Boudreault and Henri Goulet from the CNC -well, to be honest, they have supported me for over seven years...

Caroline and Henri have been taking hundreds of photos for the paper mentioned before. As a "byproduct" of their work, we have ended with some new pictures of species previously described from Canada. In this post I share color photos for three of those species, to be continued in future posts with more species.

The three species of today were described and partially illustrated in a 2010 Zookeys paper, but the pictures shown below are new and provide more morphological details. Altogether with the images from Zookeys -which can also be freely accessed and downloaded- we now have a much better documentation of those species... hopefully more Canadian microgastrines will follow this trend.

Apanteles huberi Fernández-Triana, 2010. This species will be the focus of an additional post, due to the fact that it is very close to Apanteles fumiferanae Viereck, 1912 -which has already been featured in this blog. Both species show are very similar morphologically, and their DNA barcodes are also remarkably close. Stay tuned for more details on why they are different...

Apanteles huberi, lateral view. Photo taken by Caroline Boudreault and Henri Goulet (CNC).

Photos of four Nearctic species of Microgastrinae

I have been too busy lately -and should continue to be that way until mid April or so. For that reason, my contributions to this blog for the next few weeks will be more limited than what I would like. 

This post is to share colour photos and basic comments on distribution and hosts of four Nearctic species of Microgastrinae, with the hope of expanding that information in the near future. It is part of a long-term effort to build a virtual library (of images, biological, ecological and taxonomic information) about braconid species parasitoids of caterpillars -in North America and hopefully beyond. As far as I know, the photos shared below are the first colour photos available for those species -if I am wrong, please let me know!

1- Glyptapanteles compressiventris. This is a widely distributed species in the Holarctic (Nearctic, Eastern and Western Palearctic). It has been reared mostly from the Lepidoptera family Arctiidae (eight hosts species recorded), with a couple of questionable records from Noctuidae and Tortricidae.

Glyptapanteles compressiventris specimen from the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Ottawa. Photo taken by Caroline Boudreault and José Fernández-Triana.

Updated list of Nearctic Microgastrinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

This post introduces a new way I plan to use in this blog to share taxonomic information. I will start providing dynamic species lists -in the sense that data are new/current as of the date they are posted, and they will be kept updated as I post more information during the next few months.

The reader should check the page in this blog named "Species Lists". It provides updated information about species from a particular region. The first list posted includes all Microgastrinae known from the Nearctic Region (Canada, Greenland, and United States). You can access that data by clicking on the top left corner of the blog, or just by clicking  here.

A total of 338 Microgastrinae species (321 of them already described) are accounted for there, making it the most comprehensive list assembled so far for the region. Let's briefly summarize what was known before.

The last Nearctic list was published by Whitfield (1995). It included 288 microgastrines -282 when removing some questionable records: at least 5 species introduced into North America as biological control agents which are not likely to be established; and also cited Glyptapanteles longicornis as a valid species, overlooking its synonymization under G. pallipes by Papp (1983). 

During the 18 years since the publication of Whitfield's paper, 27 new species with Nearctic distribution have been described, and a handful of species already described from other regions have been recorded for North America.

For example, Fernandez-Triana (2010) provided an updated list of 225 species for Canada and Alaska, including 29 species determined only to genus level. Some of those undescribed species are also mentioned in the present list, because they are expected to be published soon (and when they are, the blog will update that information accordingly). However, I have left may more out -species that are clearly new records for the Nearctic but are not accounted for now, pending further study.