Aphelinoidea Girault, 1911

Triapitsyn, Ś. Serguei V., 2018, Review of the Palearctic Aphelinoidea (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae), with focus on the species described by Ś. Nowicki, Israel Journal of Entomology 48 (2), pp. 33-81 : 36-37

Genus Aphelinoidea Girault, 1911

Aphelinoidea Girault, 1911: 2–4 . Type species: Aphelinoidea semifuscipennis Girault , by orig. des.

Aphelinoidea Girault : Pinto 2006: 87–89 (taxonomic history, list of synonyms, diagnosis, distribution, diversity, discussion, list of New World records, hosts).

Among the Trichogrammatidae , Aphelinoidea species can be recognized using the keys in Doutt and Viggiani (1968), Pinto (2006) and Fursov (2007). See Doutt and Viggiani (1968), Trjapitzin (1995), Walker et al. (2005), Fursov (2007), and particularly Pinto (2006) for the taxonomic history of the genus and its diagnosis, and also for the diagnoses of the recognized subgenera and species groups within the nominate subgenus. Pinto (2006) also provided an important discussion and good illustrations. The currently recognized subgenera and species groups in the nominate subgenus of Aphelinoidea occurring in the Palearctic region are keyed below.

The identities of the European species A. laticlavia Fursov and A. stepposa Fursov ,­very­briefly­described­in­the­key­to­the­ten­Palearctic­species­of­ Aphelinoidea ( Fursov 2007) without mentioning some crucial morphological features, such as relative length of the ovipositor (this is an improper way to describe new taxa), are not clear to me. Without access to their holotype females or, at least, their digital images­(my­ request­ for­ these­ has­ not­ been­ fulfilled),­it­ is­ impossible­ to­ includethem in the key to the Palearctic species of Aphelinoidea below. Recognition of species in the A. (Aphelinoidea) plutella ­species­ group­ is­ very­ difficult­(andoften practically impossible without supporting genetic data, which are currently lacking)­ to­ separate­ from­ each­ other,­ and­ identification­ of­ A. laticlavia and A. stepposa is problematic in the absence of their full description and digital images of the primary types, even though the original illustrations are good. As shown here, even with availability of the very detailed original descriptions, as well as images and measurements of Nowicki’s type specimens, some species from this group are still almost impossible to diagnose properly. As noted by Rakitov and Triapitsyn (2013), users of the key in Fursov (2007), which they partially translated and­slightly­modified,­need­to­keep­in­mind­that­proportions­of­the­clava­and­itstwo segments (length: width ratios) as well as other antennomeres vary, often substantially, within the same species, and thus seem to be quite similar among some of the already described species in the plutella group ( Table 1). Moreover, Fursov’s descriptions were not based on the examination of the type material of the Nowicki species, and neither was my own previous key ( Trjapitzin 1995). The way specimens are dried or mounted on a slide (particularly orientation of the clava)­also­may,­potentially­significantly,­affect­these­ratios,­especially­if­the­antennae are not in a perfect lateral view or shriveled. Thus, describing any new taxa in this species group based solely on the ratios of antennal segments should be discouraged in the absence of other distinguishing morphological characters and supporting molecular evidence, which would be particularly helpful for separation of the already known species. I expect that once such information becomes available, some of them would eventually need to be synonymized.