First records of the subfamily Acaenitinae in Florida (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae)

Authors

Charles C. Porter, Florida State Collection of Arthropods, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Gainesville, FL

Date of this Version

December 2001

Comments

Insecta Mundi, published by the Center for Systematic Entomology, is available online at http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/. Copyright © by Porter.

Abstract

Acaenitines have five genera and 18 species in North American forests (Townes 1960). Several of these occur in the eastern United States, but none is recorded from Florida; however, recent fieldwork in Florida yielded four species: Arotes decorus (Say), Spilopteron formosum (Cresson), S. occiputale (Cresson) and S. vicinum (Cresson) . These inhabit mature forests and attack wood-boring beetle larvae in dead trunks. There are no Florida host records, but Townes (1960) and Cushman and Rohwer (1920) report that in the northeastern states A. decorus was reared from Tomoxia (Mordellidae) in Carya (Juglandaceae), S. formosum from Bellamira (Cerambycidae) in Betula (Betulaceae), S. occiputale from Strangalina (Cerambycidae) in Quercus (Fagaceae) and S. vicinum from Leptura (Cerambycidae) in Pinus (Pinaceae).