Taxonomic revision and morphometric analysis of Meteorus Haliday, 1835 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Meteorinae) from Colombia

Abstract

Meteorus Haliday 1835 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is a cosmopolitan genus with nearly 250 species around the world. Its species are koinobiont endoparasitoids that use Coleoptera and Lepidoptera caterpillars as hosts, some of them are important agricultural pests. The Meteorus fauna is better known for the Palearctic, Nearctic, Afrotropical and Australian regions, but these wasps are poorly studied in the Neotropical region. From Colombia only two species have been previously reported. The goals of this paper are to study the taxonomic diversity of Meteorus from Colombia and to test the taxonomic value of morphometric characters used to discriminate species. The taxonomic value of the morphometric traits is tested using discriminant function analysis, principal components analysis and graphical exploration of data. A taxonomic key and diagnoses for the species are presented. Nineteen species are newly described: M. amazonensis sp. nov., M. andreae sp. nov., M. antioquensis sp. nov., M. boyacensis sp. nov., M. calimai sp. nov., M. caquetensis sp. nov., M. cecavorum sp. nov., M. chingazensis sp. nov., M. dixi sp. nov., M. farallonensis sp. nov., M. guacharensis sp. nov., M. guineverae sp. nov., M. huilensis sp. nov., M. iguaquensis sp. nov., M. jerodi sp. nov., M. magdalensis sp. nov., M. muiscai sp. nov., M. quimbayensis sp. nov., M. santanderensis sp. nov. Sixteen species are new records for Colombia: M. alejandromasisi Zitani, M. arizonensis Muesebeck, M. corniculatus Zitani, M. desmiae Zitani, M. dimidiatus (Cresson), M. dos Zitani, M. mariamartae Zitani, M. megalops Zitani, M. oviedoi Shaw & Nishida, M. papiliovorus Zitani, M. pseudodimidiatus Zitani, M. rogerblancoi Zitani, M. rugonasus Shaw & Jones, M. townsendi Muesebeck, M. uno Zitani, M. yamijuanum Zitani. Most of the new species are found in Andean forests above 2000 m. New hosts are recorded for M. alejandromasisi, M. laphygmae, M. papiliovorus and M. rubens. The morphometric traits of the head are the most useful for separating species. In contrast, the wings traits are very labile and species differentiation with only wing characters is difficult.