Taxonomia de Dasymutillini Neotropical Brothers & Lelej, 2017 com ênfase em Traumatomutilla André, 1901 (Hymenoptera: mutillidae)

Abstract

Mutillidae is a family of aculeate wasps in which the females are always apterous, males usually fully winged, and whose larvae act as ectoparasitoids of encapsulated imatures of other insects, especially pupae of other solitary Hymenoptera. Only Mutillinae and Sphaeropthalminae are recorded for the Neotropical Region, with the latter housing the Dasymutillini which in turn encompasses one fourth of the Neotropical species of Mutillidae. The Neotropical genera of Dasymutillini are notoriously complex, with poorly defined limits, several doubtful species placements, many of which are likely paraphyletic and will probably be split into multiple new taxa in the future. One such genus is Traumatomutilla André, which holds over 180 of the approximately 450 species of the tribe, and whose taxonomy is especially complex as it is historically neglected. The sexual dimorphism typocal of Mutillidae in general resulted in numerous species of Traumatomutilla being described based on females (136) or males (48), with only two species being known from both sexes. The description of more than half of these species dates from before 1920 e it is based almost exclusively on color and setae characters whose diagnostic usefulness has been put into question by recent studies. Additionally, there are no morphological characters that can be reliably used to separate Traumatomutilla from its north american counterpart, Dasymutilla Ashmead, even though both genera form phylogenetically distinct groups. The present study aimed to elucidate the taxonomy of neotropical Dasymutillini emphasizing the Traumatomutilla species and its morphological allies. For this, more than 10.000 specimens of Traumatomutilla, Cephalomutilla André, Leucospilomutilla Ashmead and Dasymutilla were examined, including more than 200 type-specimens. The results are as follows: two new genera were described, Atlantilla Bartholomay & Williams gen. nov. — containing only one species based on the former species group of Traumatomutilla auriculata and males of the Atlantic Forest hitherto undescribed — and Quwitilla Bartholomay & Williams— to include three species formerly place within Dasymutilla, Q. blattoserica (Kohl) comb. nov. (type species), Q. peruviana (Suárez) comb. nov., and Q. bellatrix (Manley & Pitts) comb. nov.; the genus Cephalomutilla is revised resulting in nine proposed synonyms and four species known from both sexes, C. haematodes (Gerstaecker), C. zelichi Casal, C. proxima (Smith), and C. cabezona Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov.; the genus Leucospilomutilla is also revised resulting in two species known from both sexes and one species known from females only; two species of Dasymutilla are synonymized with previously known species of Traumatomutilla and a third one is transferred to Xystromutilla André, X. aequatorialis (André) comb. nov.; the South American records for Dasymutilla species are updated reduing to five the number of species of this genus to occur in the region. Twelve of the 14 species groups of Traumatomutilla are revised resulting in 68 proposed synonyms, 61 redescriptions (including 37 cases in which both sexes had to be described/redescribed), 38 sex associations, 13 identifcation keys, and nine new species: T. pilkingtoni Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov., T. fratres Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov., T. anhanga Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov., T. barathra Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov., T. pantherina Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov., T. poranga Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov., T. juvenindica Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov., T. peismatara Bartholomay & Cambra sp. nov., and T. tetratrauma Bartholomay & Williams sp. nov. Three new host records are also provided for Traumatomutilla: T. ocellaris (Klug) parasitizing Bicyrtes sp.; and T. diopthalma (Klug) parasitizing Podium sp. (in laboratory) and Trypoxylon sp. (in trap nests). The results included in the current thesis encompass 68 of the 118 currently valid species of Traumatomutilla, having revised 128 of the more than 180 species formerly recognized within the genus with the addition of three species formerly in incertae sedis status, Mutilla tenuis (Smith), Mutilla polita (Smith), and Mutilla impetuosa (Smith).