DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF THE GENUS LEURUS TOWNES, 1946 (HYMENOPTERA: ICHNEUMONIDAE: METOPIINAE) FROM BRAZIL'

摘要

A new species of the genus Leurus is described. It differs from the rest of described species of the genus in not having a large ventral lobe in the mandible. Illustrations are provided.Leurus Townes 1946 (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae, Metopiinae) is a mainly neotropical genus comprised of eleven described species, ten of which are so far only recorded from Costa Rica. One species, Leurus caeruliventris (Cresson, 1868) has a wider distribution, being found both in the Neartic and the Neotropical Regions (Yu and Horstmann, 1997). Townes (1971) defined Leurus by the presence of a complete areolet in the fore wing, but Gauld et al. (2002) found 3 species in Costa Rica that have no trace ofthe areolet. According to Gauld et al. the most distinctive feature of the genus Leurus is the form of the mandibles, which are very broad with a wide ventral lobe. However, samples studied have led to the discovery of a new species of Leurus that does not match this characteristic, although it indeed has the remaining traits that define the genus. Two species of Leurus have been reared from Pyralidae (Lepidoptera) hosts.The male specimen of Leurus newly described here was collected from Serra do Japi,Jundiai region, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, using a Malaise trap in October 2007. The specimen is deposited in the collection of the Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos, Departamento de Ecologia e Biologia Evolutiva (DCBU), Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Identification of the subfamily Metopiinae and the genus Leurus was determined using the keys of Hanson and Gauld (2006) and Gauld et al. (2002) respectively.