A NEW SPECIES OF ANACIS 
FROM NORTHWEST ARGENTINA 
(HYMENOPTERA, ICHNEUMONIDAE) 
By Charles C. Porter* 
Department of Biological Sciences, Fordham University, 
Bronx, New York 10458 
In two previous contributions (Porter 1967, 1970), the author 
characterized the mesostenine ichneumonid genus Anacis, assigning 
to it four species from Chile and contiguous regions of southwestern 
Argentina. Meanwhile, Townes (1969, p. 176-177), as a result of 
his study of the world Mesostenini, enlarged the definition of A nacis 
to include also Cryptus exul (Turner, 1919, Ann. & Mag. Nat. 
Hist. (9)3: 558) from Tasmania. Consequently, Anacis seemed to 
emerge as pertaining to that zoogeographic category comprised of 
taxa restricted at the present time to the Nothofagus zone of south- 
ern South America and to similar areas of the Australian region. 
Now, however, discovery of a fifth Neotropic Anacis from sub- 
tropical wet forest in northwestern Argentina obliges us to modify 
our distributional concept of the genus. Thus, in South America 
Anacis appears to be of Andean rather than of strictly Neantarctic 
or Araucanian range and, quite possibly, extends to other areas on 
the continent. Its New World distribution, therefore, may be com- 
pared to that of several other ichneumonid genera — such as Macro - 
grotea , Trachysphyrus (sensu Townes), Picrocryptvides, Dotocryp- 
tus, Deleboea } Alophophion , and Thymebatis — all of which are 
well represented in Andean and temperate South America, including 
Chile, but which concurrently have a greater or lesser number of 
species on the peripheries of the lowland tropics. Taxa of this same 
distributional type which moreover have species in the Australian 
region are, of course, much rarer, but the ichneumonid genus Labena 
(two species also reach North America) and the seolioid family 
Thynnidae constitute approximate parallels. 
The present study offers a description of this new Argentine 
Anacis and a revised key to all known South American species of 
the genus. 
KEY TO THE SOUTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF ANACIS 
(Based on females) 
1. Mesoscutum mat, finely granular; setae of second gastric ter- 
gite dense, mostly approaching or exceeding the length of their 
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