112 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 216 



Front wing 5 to 22 mm. long; body long and slender with the 

 ovipositor long ; face black or concolorus with the rest of head ; clypeus 

 black to fulvous, moderately wide, weakly convex to flat, its apical 

 part impressed and with a deep median notch, rarely also with a 

 median apical tubercle; teeth of mandible of equal length; occipital 

 carina complete, with a strong dip on the midline; hairs on meso- 

 scutum moderately dense, evenly distributed, or in some Neotropic 

 species the mesoscutum bare or almost so; prepectal carina usually 

 present, absent only in the Nearctic D. cuspidatus; submetapleural 

 carina complete; propodeum moderately long, usually with median 

 longitudinal carinae on more or less of its basal half; areolet rather 

 elongate, the first intercubitus tending to be longer and more oblique 

 than in other genera of Pimplini; second recurrent received basad of 

 apical corner of areolet; nervellus broken near or above the middle, 

 usually distinctly above the middle; first tergite long, about as long 

 as second tergite, its lateral and median longitudinal carinae usually 

 long and strong; basal oblique grooves of second tergite long and 

 strong, extending about 0.55 the length of the tergite; third and 

 fourth tergites with strong or moderately strong tubercles, their 

 apical impunctate bands occupying about 0.1 their length; female 

 subgenital plate narrowly sclerotized apicolaterally and usually very 

 narrowly across the apex, the rest membranous; ovipositor cylindric, 

 straight or its apex often curved in dead specimens, its apex as in 

 figures 330,c to 330,h; ovipositor sheath 1.2 to 8.0 as long as front 

 wing. The lower valve of the ovipositor has a subapical lobe that 

 somewhat encloses the sides of the upper valve near its tip. This is 

 the most distinctive feature of the genus. The long first tergite and 

 the long, deep, basolateral oblique grooves on the second tergite are 

 additional strong characters. 



The species of Dolichomitus are slender, with a long ovipositor, and 

 mostly large in size. The Nearctic species are black with fulvous 

 legs, except that one very common species has the abdomen red and 

 the hind coxa black. They are the largest of our Pimplini and with 

 their long ovipositors are spectacular insects. The species have 

 formerly been placed under the generic names Ephialtes, Ichneumon, 

 or Pimpla, usually under Ephialtes, but refinements in zoological and 

 nomenclatural information make it necessary to classify them under 

 Dolichomitus. The genus Dolichomitus itself contains a heterogeneous 

 lot of species and a searching study of the world fauna may show the 

 need for redefining it. This is for the future, however, and the 

 classification presented here seems to be the best possible with the 

 information available today. 



