Pteromalus actinopterae (Hedqvist, 1977)
Redescription of holotype (female).-
Morphology: Head dorsally seen 2.1 times as broad as long and 1.1 times broader than mesonotum, POL twice OOL, OOL 1.9 OD, gena 0.35 apparent length of eye. Frontally seen the malar space is half as long as eye, lower face 0.7 length of upper face, scape 0.8 length of upper face and of eye length. Pedicellus plus flagellum 0.9 breadth of head; pedicellus 1.3 times longer than F1, F1 and F2 quadrate, F6 slightly transverse.
Mesosoma 1.35 times longer than broad; pronotum 0.2 times length of mesoscutum and with rounded front margin; propodeum 1.8 times broader than long; relative lengths of wing veins: costal cell:M:PM:ST=100:46:44:38. Wing surface sparsely set with whitish hairs, hairrow on underside of the costal cell interrupted..
Gaster twice as long as broad and 1.4 times longer than mesosoma; tergite 7 broader than long.
Colour: Dark blue with only the scape fuscous and the rest of the antennae brown; the legs have the femora coloured like the body, the tibiae are infuscate.
Comments.-
Hedqvist placed the species in the sequester group. However, the characters do not agree with the members of that group: the clypeus is not incised as in the other species, the propodeum is typical for the members of the albipennis group as are the hosts: Tephritidae. Morphologically actinopterae resembles decipiens , which was found on Artemisia (Graham, 1969) and can be distinguished only by the extremely dark blue colour and the striation of the lower face. I have found actinopterae in Spain on Helichrysum stoechas and on H. italicum together with Actinoptera meigeni. These specimens are exactly like the Swedish ones. Therefore it is reasonable to keep decipiens and actinopterae as two distinct taxa.
Biology.- Associated with Actinoptera spp. (Dipt. Tephritidae) in Helichrysum species.
Distribution.- France, Spain, Sweden.