The Wasp Genus Clystopsenella in Belize (Hymenoptera: Scolebythidae)

Abstract

Wasps of the family Scolebythidae are distinctive members of the basal aculeate superfamily Chrysidoidea. Species are gregarious ectoparasitoids of wood-boring beetles (e.g., Brothers, 1981; Melo, 2000) and have long been considered a classic group of austral distribution, the result of Gondwanan vicariance. Since the recognition of the family by Evans (1963) for species in Madagascar and Brazil, few specimens and species have been discovered, but all have come from southern localities-South Africa, Australia1, Fiji1, southern South America (e.g., Nagy, 1975; Day, 1977; Evans et al, 1979; Azevedo, 1999; Beaver, 2002). While the family is poorly represented and rarely collected in the modem fauna, numerous extinct species are known in fossiliferous ambers, particularly those from the Cretaceous (e.g., Brothers and Janzen, 1999; Grimaldi and Engel, 2005; Engel and Grimaldi, unpubl. data). That almost all of these fossils come from the Northern Hemisphere demonstrates that the family once had a much wider distribution than is represented by extant species. Indeed, paleontological evidence indicates that the family was once globally distributed and experienced significant losses in diversity during the climatic changes during and after the Eocene-Oligocene transition. Interestingly, since the discovery of many of the northern fossil species, the family has been discovered in northern South America (Fernandez et al, 2002) and in southernmost Central America, namely Costa Rica and Panama (Gauld, 1995; Cambra and Azevedo, 2003), slowly edging the range of the family northward. These records served to close the geographic gap between the fossil scolebythid species from the Dominican Republic and modem taxa. Two genera are presently documented in the Neotropical region-Clystopsenella and Pristapenesia (Dominibythus, the generic name under which some Neotropical records exist, is a junior synonym of Pristapenesia: vide Brothers and Janzen, 1999) (Gauld, 1995; Azevedo, 1999; Fernandez et al., 2002; Cambra and Azevedo, 2003). While Clystopsenella is known only from the New World and the modem fauna, Pristapenesia is documented from a single extant species [Pristapenesia stricta (Azevedo), new combination], a species in Early Miocene Dominican amber [P. inopinata (Prentice and Poinar)], and a species in middle Eocene Baltic amber (P. primaeva Brues). Herein I record a female of Clystopsenella longiventris Kieffer (1911) captured in northern Belize, representing a significant northward expansion of the species and of the family Scolebythidae. This is northernmost record of the family in the modem fauna, further challenging the notion that this is a Southern Hemisphere family of chrysidoid wasps. As noted by Cambra and Azevedo (2003), the species is likely widespread in tropical America, albeit rare, and its disjunct distribution in the New World the result of poor sampling. The family should be sought in the intervening countries as well as in southern Mexico.