Gowri Prakash, Manickavasagam Sagadai, Kanagarajan Rasappan
Annamalai University, Faculty of Agriculture, Chidambaram, India.
Annamalai University, Department of Entomology, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India.
Biodivers Data J. 2016 Jan 21(4):e6900. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e6900. eCollection 2016.
Chalcidids are one of the most important parasitoids of pupae of agriculturally important pests belonging to orders like Lepidoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. Such an important group has not been studied consistently by any team of workers from any country apart from the notable contributions by Boucek, Steffan, Delvare and Narendran. (Boucek 1988, Steffan 1973, Delvare 1992 and Narendran 1989). On a personal note, Dr. John S Noyes of Natural History Museum London agrees with this view as expressed with the second author and hence we felt that we can initiate further work on this group within India. We currently hold hundreds of unidentified specimens of this family in our department collection confirming that we will have much work to do over a long period of time.
New distribution records of Chalcididae from Andhra Pradesh (Brachymeria megaspila, B. minuta, Dirhinus anthracia and D. auratus), Bihar (B. podagrica, B. excarinata, B. hearseyi, D. anthracia, D. auratus, D. pilifer, Epitranus erythrogaster and Psilochalcis carinigena), Karnataka (B. apicicornis), Manipur (B. euploeae, D. auratus and E. erythrogaster), Mizoram (B. euploeae and D. anthracia), Nagaland (B. euploeae), Himachal Pradesh (B. alternipes), and Tamil Nadu (B. apicicornis, D. anthracia, D. deplanatus, D. pilifer, D. bakeri, E. observator, E. elongatulus, P. keralensis and P. soudanensis) and union territories Andaman & Nicobar Islands (B. podagrica, B. excarinata, E. erythrogaster and P. carinigena) and Pudhucherry (B. albicrus, D. anthracia, D. auratus, E. erythrogaster and P. kerelensis) are documented from the unidentified material mentioned above.
小蜂科昆虫是农业重要害虫蛹期最重要的寄生蜂之一，这些害虫隶属于鳞翅目、双翅目、鞘翅目和膜翅目等目。除了布塞克、斯特凡、德尔瓦雷和纳伦德兰（布塞克，1988年；斯特凡，1973年；德尔瓦雷，1992年；纳伦德兰，1989年）所做出的显著贡献外，任何国家的研究团队都未对这一重要类群进行持续研究。就个人而言，伦敦自然历史博物馆的约翰·S·诺伊斯博士认同第二作者所表达的这一观点，因此我们觉得可以在印度国内对这一类群展开进一步研究。目前我们系的馆藏中有数百份该科未鉴定的标本，这证实我们在很长一段时间内都有大量工作要做。
从上述未鉴定的材料中记录了小蜂科在以下地区的新分布记录：安得拉邦（大唇长尾小蜂、微小长尾小蜂、炭疽迪氏小蜂和金色迪氏小蜂）、比哈尔邦（胫长尾小蜂、具棱长尾小蜂、赫氏长尾小蜂、炭疽迪氏小蜂、金色迪氏小蜂、毛跗迪氏小蜂、红腹埃氏小蜂和棱背小蜂）、卡纳塔克邦（角突长尾小蜂）、曼尼普尔邦（优斑蛱蝶长尾小蜂、金色迪氏小蜂和红腹埃氏小蜂）、米佐拉姆邦（优斑蛱蝶长尾小蜂和炭疽迪氏小蜂）、那加兰邦（优斑蛱蝶长尾小蜂）、喜马偕尔邦（交替代长尾小蜂）、泰米尔纳德邦（角突长尾小蜂、炭疽迪氏小蜂、平腹迪氏小蜂、毛跗迪氏小蜂、贝氏迪氏小蜂、观察埃氏小蜂、细长埃氏小蜂、喀拉拉棱背小蜂和苏丹棱背小蜂），以及中央直辖区安达曼和尼科巴群岛（胫长尾小蜂、具棱长尾小蜂、红腹埃氏小蜂和棱背小蜂）和本地治里（白跗长尾小蜂、炭疽迪氏小蜂、金色迪氏小蜂、红腹埃氏小蜂和喀拉拉棱背小蜂）。
