Two hymenopteran egg sac associates of the tent-web orbweaving spider, Cyrtophora citricola (Forskål, 1775) (Araneae, Araneidae)

By

Chuang, Angela
Gates, Michael William 1969-
Grinsted, Lena
Askew, R. R. (Richard Robinson), 1935-
Leppanen, Christy J

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2019

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

874

Pages

1--18

Subjects

colonial spider , Eulophidae , Eurytomidae , natural enemy , orbweaver

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.874.36656

 

Abstract

We report the discovery of two wasp species emerging from egg sacs of the spider Cyrtophora citricola (Forskål 1775) collected from mainland Spain and the Canary Islands. We identify one as Philolema palanichamyi (Narendran 1984) (Hymenoptera, Eurytomidae) and the other as a member of the Pediobius pyrgo (Walker 1839) species group (Hymenoptera, Eulophidae). This is the first report of Philolema in Europe, and the first documentation of hymenopteran egg predators of C. citricola. The latter finding is particularly relevant, given the multiple invasive populations of C. citricola in the Americas and the Caribbean, where neither egg sac predation nor parasitism is known to occur. We describe rates of emergence by Ph. palanichamyi from spider egg sacs collected from the southern coast of Spain and estimate sex ratios and body size variation among males and females. We also re-describe Ph. palanichamyi based on the female holotype and male paratype specimens.