Luis Felipe V. de Almeida

Eleven new species of Athacryvac Braet & van Achterberg from the Neotropical Region (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Rogadinae)

The neotropical genus Athacryvac Braet & van Achterberg was recently described based on two species from French Guiana. Despite the resemblance of these species with the diverse and widespread genus Aleiodes, the authors opted to erect the new genus based on several synapomorphies. With the analysis of more comprehensive morphological and geographical variation we propose reclassifying Athacryvac as a subgenus within Aleiodes. In this paper we describe 11 new neotropical species of the subgenus Athacryvac: Aleiodes (Athacryvac) achterbergi Shimbori & Penteado-Dias sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) amazoniensis Shimbori & Almeida sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) braeti Shimbori & Shaw sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) choco Shimbori sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) donaldquickei Shimbori & Penteado-Dias sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) gonzalezi Shimbori & Shaw sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) paradoxus Shimbori & Penteado-Dias sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) soaresi Shimbori & Penteado-Dias sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) tico Shimbori & Shaw sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) torresi Shimbori & Shaw sp. nov., Aleiodes (Athacryvac) zaldivari Shimbori & Almeida sp. nov. We also provide new morphological and distributional data for the previously described A. alternatus and A. fuscatus, as well as the description of the male of the later species. The 13 known species of Aleiodes (Athacryvac) stat. nov. are restricted to the Neotropical Region, ranging from southern Mexico to southern Brazil. With our current results, there are 104 described neotropical Aleiodes species.

First record of the genera Centistoides van Achterberg and Pygostolus Haliday (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) in Brazil, with the description of new species

The genera Centistoides and Pygostolus are recorded for the first time in Brazil. Centistoides manoeli sp. nov., Pygostolus carolinae sp. nov. and Pygostolus odeterochae sp. nov. are described and illustrated.

A taxonomic study of Costa Rican Leptodrepana with the description of twenty-four new species (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Cheloninae)

Abstract The genus Leptodrepana Shaw was described in 1983, but prior to the current study only one Neotropical species had been described from Mexico and none were named from Costa Rica. In this paper twenty-four new species are described and named from Costa Rica: L. alexisae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. atalanta Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. conda Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. conleyae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. demeter Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. eckerti Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. gauldilox Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. hansoni Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. kimbrellae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. lorenae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. munjuanae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. ninae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. pamelabbas Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. ronnae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. rosanadana Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. schuttei Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. scottshawi Dadelahi, sp. n., L. shriekae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. sohailae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. sorayae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. soussanae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. stasia Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. strategeri Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., and L. thema Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n. A key to Costa Rican species of Leptodrepana is provided. The flagellum of all female Leptodrepana described in this work is reduced to only 17 flagellomeres. This character state is also found in two North American species described by Shaw (1983), L. opuntiae Shaw and L. oriens Shaw. It is hypothesized that a female antenna with 17 flagellomeres is a synapomorphy for a species-group comprising all the Costa Rican Leptodrepana species as well as two of the Mexican and North American species, L. opuntiae and L. oriens.

Revision of the genus Centistes (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Euphorinae: Centistini) of Costa Rica

This paper provides the first taxonomic revision for the euphorine genus Centistes from a Neotropical country. Twenty-three new species are described: C. achterbergi sp. n., C. acuticaudatus sp. n., C. auricephalus sp. n., C. auristigma sp. n., C. bicaudatus sp. n., C. cabecares sp. n., C. cartagoensis sp. n., C. chorotegus sp. n., C. compactus sp. n., C. curvicaudatus sp. n., C. gauldi sp. n., C. hansoni sp. n., C. hirsutus sp. n., C. janzeni sp. n., C. laticaudatus sp. n., C. longicaudatus sp. n., C. marshi sp. n., C. muertensis sp. n., C. ornamentum sp. n., C. pilosus sp. n., C. puntarenensis sp. n., C. sergeyi sp. n., C. zurquiensis sp. n. A taxonomic key, including the two previously described species, C. epicaeri Muesebeck and C. gasseni Shaw, is presented. As a whole, the Centistes exhibit their highest diversity in the premontane cloud forests.

Five new species of Meteorus Haliday (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Euphorinae) from Brazil.

Meteorus Haliday, 1835 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is a cosmopolitan genus with around 340 species described, all koinobiont endoparasitoids of Coleoptera or Lepidoptera larvae, and several of its hosts are pest insects. Previously to this work only two species were described from Brazil, M. eaclidis Muesebeck and M. townsendi Muesebeck. Five new species of Meteorus are here described: M. atlanticus n. sp., M. ferruginosus n. sp., M. itatiaiensis n. sp., M. monoceros n. sp., and M. strigatus n. sp. Three species are recorded for the first time from Brazil: M. jerodi Aguirre & Shaw, M. laphygmae Viereck and M. megalops Zitani.