New additions to the Swedish fauna of Eulophidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea), including a new species of Tamarixia Mercet

摘要

Species of Eulophidae are chalcidoid wasps that with few exceptions develop as parasitoids at the expense of their arthropod hosts. They are small to very small, with an average size somewhere between one and two millimetres, sometimes they are even smaller than one millimetre. In their larval stage they feed and develop on other insects, which they eventually kill, thus earning the denotation parasitoid wasps. Amateur entomologists hardly ever take any interest in them, even though these wasps are frequently encountered when they try to rear specimens of their focus group. For instance, many eulophids parasitizedifferent groups of Lepidoptera - a focus group for many amateurs, from the smallest moths in the genus Stigmella Schrank, to the large hawk moths (Sphingidae). Eulophids usually feed on larvae of their hosts, more rarely on their eggs. In spite of the fact that so few Swedish entomologists have taken an interest in the group, the Swedish fauna of eulophids is one of the best known in Europe, currently with 584 species recorded from the country (Dyntaxa 2017). Even so, there are still many things to discover about this group and one important thing to find out is what species actually occur here.