Christopher K. Starr

A New Genus of Hover Wasps from Southeast Asia (Hymenoptera: Vespidae; Stenogastrinae)

Abstract Chalogaster spatulata, new genus and species, is described from Viet Nam and northern Thailand. The genus belongs to the subfamily Stenogastrinae, a group of social wasps endemic to the Oriental Region. Cladistic analysis indicates that Chalogaster is the sister-group of the genus Metischnogaster van der Vecht. A revised key to the genera of Stenogastrinae is presented.

The Neotropical social wasp Mischocyttarus ‘alfkenii’ Ducke (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) is a pair of ethospecies

In Trinidad, West Indies, wasps matching the description of Mischocyttarus alfkenii build two readily distinguishable nest forms, differing both in architecture (excentric versus centric petiole) and colour (yellowish grey‐brown versus reddish medium brown). Analysis of two mitochondrial genes (16S and cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, COI) in excentric‐ and centric‐form M. ‘alfkenii’ consistently segregates individuals from the two nest forms, with genetic divergences comparable with those observed among other species in the genus. Geometric morphometric analysis of wing venation likewise recovers consistent differences between nest forms. Integrating behavioural, genetic and morphometric evidence corroborates the hypothesis that the two nest forms correspond to distinct species of recent common ancestry. Notes accompanying the description of M. alfkenii indicate that the name belongs to the species in which the nest has an excentric petiole and paler carton. The other species is described as Mischocyttarus baconisp.n.

Nesting Biology of the Solitary Wasp Pison argentatum (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) in Borneo and the Philippines1

Abstract Aspects of nesting biology of the widely distributed oriental solitary wasp Pison argentatum Shuckard are reported from five localities in the Philippines and one in Borneo. Completed nests comprised 1–9 cells, with average nest size differing between localities and nest substrates. Nests based on hanging roots tended to be heavily plastered with mud pellets, while those on human-made substrates were seldom plastered. Fully provisioned cells contained 7–21 spider prey. Over 75% of the 1003 prey recovered were Salticidae, while about 2% were Araneidae, the first web-building spiders recorded as P. argentatum prey. The remaining spiders were Lycosidae and Oxyopidae, like Salticidae mostly long-sighted non-web-building hunters, but also new prey family records for this wasp. P. argentatum offspring from three samples showed sex ratios (male/female) of 0.41, 1.53 and 2.40.

Diversity of mud-dauber wasps (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae: Trypoxylon Latreille) in a secondary forest of Trinidad, West Indies

ABSTRACT Over a two-year period we operated two intercept traps for flying insects near and within a well-developed secondary forest in the Arima Valley of Trinidad. These yielded 368 Trypoxylon, representing 30 species. The sample’s Shannon–Wiener diversity of H′ = 2.61 is higher than that from a comparable study of Trypoxylon on the smaller island of Tobago (15 species, H′ = 2.09) and the even smaller Little Tobago (six species, H′ = 1.41). Analysis of the samples by the Chao1 method suggests that the species numbers recorded on the two smaller islands are complete, while there is at least one additional species at the Trinidad locality. The four most abundant species in our samples show no evident bias in numbers of females between the wet and dry seasons, consistent with the hypothesis that at least these species nest throughout the year.

How many insect species are in your country? The example of Trinidad and Tobago

ABSTRACT Data from well-studied taxa are used together with explicit assumptions and estimates of the world fauna to estimate the number of insect species in Trinidad and Tobago. The median estimate of the world fauna is 4.8 million, while the median estimate of Trinidad and Tobago’s share in the world fauna is 4.8%. Accordingly, it is estimated within broad confidence limits that Trinidad and Tobago harbour 230,400 species. The approach used allows for a refinement of this estimate as new or better data become available.