Mexican species of Lathrolestes Förster (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae; Ctenopelmatinae), with descriptions of four new species and an identification key

Abstract

The Mexican fauna of the large subfamily Ctenopelmatinae (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae) is very poorly known – there are currently only seven species known from Mexico (Cresson 1868, 1874; Townes and Townes 1966; Barron 1992, 1994). The genus Lathrolestes Forster, 1869 (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae), mostly parasitoids of tenthredinid sawflies, is a large, mainly Holarctic genus with 75 described species (Yu et al. 2005; Reshchikov et al., 2010). Of these, 37 species occur in the Nearctic region (Barron 1994; Reshchikov et al., 2010), 26 species in the Palearctic region, predominantly Europe (Yu et al. 2005), one species in the Afrotropical region, Congo (Benoit 1955), four species in the Neotropics, Costa Rica (Gauld et al. 1997), and four species in the Oriental region (Uchida 1932, 1940; Reshchikov, 2010) No species of Lathrolestes have been recorded in Mexico before this work. In the most recent work on neotropical ctenopelmatines, Gauld (in Gauld et al. 1997) described four species from Costa Rica. Seven Nearctic species have been recorded from the southern states of the USA (Barron 1994). Four species are described in this paper as new: Lathrolestes xochiquetzalis sp. n., L. quetzalcoatlus sp. n., L. tepeyollotlis sp. n. and L. kukulcanis sp. n.. These species resemble the Costa Rican species described by Gauld and two Nearctic species, Lathrolestes asperatus Barron, 1994 and L. erugatus Barron, 1994 as they have white median bands on the antennal flagellum (excluding L. haroldi Gauld, 1997) (Figs 1–6), a reddish-yellow body (Figs 2, 5) or a reddish-yellow body with black and yellow marks (Figs 1, 3, 4, 6), strongly raised propodeal carinae (Figs 15–18) and a complete occipital carina. A key to Mexican species of Lathrolestes is provided. Six closely related species from the adjacent territories (two reported from the South of the USA and four from Costa Rica) are also included in the key. All the species were examined from available material.