Leptomastidea shafeei Hayat & Subba Rao

Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Encyrtidae: Tetracneminae

Female: Length 0.94 mm. Head whitish with minute punctations; ocelli white; antennae dark brown, except ventral margin of scape and distal half of pedicel white; dorsum of mesosoma brownish, mesosternae dark brown, remaining white; fore and hind wings hyaline; legs orange yellow except middle coxae and dorsal margin of middle femur black; metasoma whitish, except distal half of tenth tergum black. Width of frontovertex about half of head width; frontovertex about as long as wide; ocelli white, arranged in equilateral triangle, basal ocellus separated by less than two times its diameter from eye and occipital margins; malar space shorter than eye width; eyes bare; antennae inserted near oral margin; mandibles bidentate; scape elongate, about four times longer than wide; pedicel longer than first funicle segment; funicle segments first, third and sixth sub equal in length; first segment three times longer than wide, sixth slightly more than two times longer than wide; clava 3-segmented, slightly more than four times longer than wide, slightly longer than preceding two funicle segments combined. scutum reticulate, sparsely setose, wider than long; axillae triangular and contiguous in middle; scutellum longitudinally reticulate, as long as wide and longer than scutum and with 6 pairs of setae. Fore wing about three times longer than wide; marginal vein about as long as postmarginal vein, longer than stigmal vein; mid-tibial spur about as long as basitarsus; metasoma longer than mesosoma (Shafee et al., 1975).

 Thorax

   Adult - dorsal, lateral view

India: Bihar, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu (Hayat, 2006).

Indet. coccid on wild plant (Shafee et al., 1975); Acalypha scale (Noyes and Hayat, 1994); ex. Pseudococcus sp. on indet. plant.

Factsheet prepared by Dr. A. Rameshkumar, Research associate, NPIB, NBAII.