New records of family Chalcididae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) on vegetables ecosystem from New Delhi, India

ABSTRACT

Chalcidids are important primary parasitoids for controlling several economic insect pests, and some are secondary parasitoids. These specimens were collected by using different traps during the period extending from November 2021 to October 2022, from various vegetable crops grown in different localities at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-IARI), New Delhi. The larvae and pupa of the pests were brought to the lab and reared for the emergence of parasitoids at 25 ± 0.5°C and relative humidity of 65 ± 5%. Eleven species belonging to four genera in three subfamilies were identified: Brachymeria bengalensis (Cameron, 1897); B. hime (Habu, 1960); B. kassalensis (Kirby, 1886); B. lasus (Walker, 1841); B. minuta (Linnaeus, 1767); B. podagrica (Fabricius, 1787) (Brachymeriinae); Dirhinus anthracia (Walker, 1846); D. auratus Ashmead, 1905 (Dirhininae) and Antrocephalus sepyra (Walker, 1846); Kriechbaumerella kraussi (Narendran, 1989); K. rufimanus (Walker, 1860) (Haltichellinae). Among them six species are newly recorded from New Delhi. On the other hand, B. hime was recorded for the first time as a parasite on Leucinodes orbonalis Guenée (Lepidoptera, Crambidae).

KEYWORDS:

• distribution
• Brachymeria
• lepidopteran hosts
• vegetables
• Kriechbaumerella

Acknowledgments

Sincere gratitude is offered to ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Division of Entomology, for providing necessary research facilities. The authors are grateful to Prof. Dr. B. S. Tomar, head of the Division of Vegetables, IARI, New Delhi, for allowing them to collect the specimens from the field and the first author gratefully acknowledge Prof. Dr. Neveen S. Gadallah, Entomology Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Egypt, for helping in the identification of some species.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India.