Encarsia bimaculata Heraty & Polaszek

Encarsia bimaculata Heraty & Polaszek, 2000: 155-157. Holotype female, India, Tabarbhani, 19.vii.1994 [ex culture Gainesville, Florida, R. Nguyen, autoparasitoid, M92018] (USNM)

Diagnosis

Female

Colour

Mainly yellow except pronotum, a large anteromedian patch on middle lobe of mesoscutum, axillae, propodeum and petiole brown. Head yellow with a transverse dark band. Gaster mostly yellow except brown at base and occasionally with a faint dark patch on 5th and 6th tergites. Fore wing hyaline, slightly infuscate near base of marginal vein.

Morphology

Clava 3-segmented. Pedicel slightly longer than F1 (1.05-1.21). F1 subequal to or slightly shorter than F2 (0.79-1.00) slightly shorter than F3 (0.75-0.95), resp. Mid lobe of mesoscutum with 4(-7) setae. Scutellar sensilla close together, separated by a distance of about their width or less. Distance between anterior pair of scutellar setae distinctly smaller than between posterior pair. Fore wing 2.6-2.9 x as long as wide. Marginal fringe 0.35-0.42 x as long as wing width. Tarsus of middle leg 5-segmented. Apical spur of middle tibia longer than half the length of the basal tarsal segment (0.60-0.68). Ovipositor 1.17-1.27 x the length of the middle tibia. Third valvula 0.32-0.36 x as long as second valvifer.

Male

Colour pattern similar to female but darker. Head with a dark transverse band. Apical two segments of flagellum fused.

Species
group

Encarsia strenua-group.

Distribution
in the
Australian and
Pacific regions

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Host

B. tabaci (Gennadius), B. tabaci (Gennadius), T. vaporariorum (Westwood).

Comments

Encarsia bimaculata has a distinctive colour pattern that is unique among the species of the E. strenua complex, in particular the dark mesosomal colour pattern, although this is occasionally very faint. The other species of the E. strenua group, E. protransvena, E. oakeyensis, and E. sophia, are almost completely yellow.

Specimens from Bundaberg, Queensland, have a higher efficiency as control agents. They also differ genetically slightly from other populations of that species: sequence divergence (number of pairwise differences divided by the number of shared nucleotides) of the 28S D2 rRNA gene region between the Bundaberg population and other populations is 0.5 %. This amount of sequence divergence is within the range of intraspecific variation found among allopatric populations of the same species (Babcock and Heraty 2000, Babcock et al., 2001).