TRACHYSPHYRUS AND THE NEW GENUS AELIOPOTES 
IN THE COASTAL DESERT OF PERU AND NORTH CHILE 
(HYMENOPTERA: ICHNEUMONIDAE). 
By Charles C. Porter 1 
Department of Biological Sciences, Fordham University 
Bronx, NY 10458 
Introduction 
The Study Area 
As here considered, the Coastal Desert includes the Peruvian and 
north Chilean littoral zone and contiguous west Andean slopes 
between about 5° and 23° South Latitude. Eastward it is bounded 
by 4-6000 m high Andean peaks, which impose both a rain shadow 
and a thermic barrier. Westward, the Pacific Ocean with its cold 
Humboldt Current, creates another rain trap and further exacer- 
bates Coastal Desert aridity. Northward, in Ecuador where the 
Humboldt Current turns out to sea, the Desert yields abruptly to 
Thorn Scrub and Tropical Humid Forest. On the far south, below 
Iquique, Chile, the Andean and Humboldt Current rain shadows 
intensify and determine a 1000 km stretch of wasteland, which 
reaches up to 3000 m and is practically unrelieved by rivers. 
Consequently, there is little contemporary biotic peregrination 
between the Coastal Desert and more humid tropical communities 
on the north or with the Mediterranean Scrub of central Chile on 
the south. Some high-Andean animals and plants extend across the 
Peruvian and Bolivian highlands onto the upper west Andean slopes 
of Peru and Chile, but the Andes are so huge at these latitudes that 
such interchange is limited to relatively few cold-tolerant species. 
For this reason, the Coastal Desert possesses many endemic species 
of flora (Solbrig 1976: 34) and fauna (Porter 1983: 523-47), and 
plausibly may be recognized as a strongly defined biotic subprov- 
ince of the Neotropic Realm. 
The mesostenine ichneumonid genus Trachysphyrus and its 
Coastal Desert offshoot, Aeliopotes, conform well to the foregoing 
'Research Associate, Florida State Collection of Arthropods, Florida Department of 
Agriculture and Consumer Services, P.O. Box 1269, Gainesville, FL 32602. 
Manuscript received by the editor June 4, 1985. 
