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Family EURYTOMIDAE

Content Revised and Expanded by Michael W. Gates

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Austrophotismus daicles photo photo of typical Eurytoma species Agriotoma species photo Aranedra millsi photo Tetramesa species photo Bephratoides species photo Eurytoma descartesi photo Rileya new species photo

Clickable Image Map of Assorted Eurytomidae

Introduction

Eurytomidae contains >1400 that are phytophagous, entomophagous, or both. Some Eurytoma species and at least one species of Rileya (Hawkins & Goeden 1984) are known to feed on plant tissues before and/or after devouring the insect host. Unfortunately the distinctions between genera are not always clear and the limits of subfamilies are a matter of conjecture. Boucek (in Peck, et al. l964) recognized 2 subfamilies. Burks (1971a) arranged the world genera in 8 subfamilies, but was unable to produce a key which showed these to be natural groupings. Subba Rao (1978, on the advice of Boucek) recognized 2 subfamilies. Stage and Snelling (1986) recognized 3. Most recently Zerova (1989) recognized 7 subfamilies while Boucek (1988) reiterated the position of Stage and Snelling (1986). We adopt this latter work as being the most phylogenetically reasonable and treat 3 subfamilies in this handbook. DiGiulio (in Gibson, et al. 1997) provided keys and information to the Nearctic genera of this family. Information for Nearctic members of the family is as follows:

Rileyinae: 2 genera, 11 species. Rileya was revised by Gahan (1918) and Macrorileya has only 1 known species (this genus appears to be a member of Eurytominae rather than Rileyinae).

Heimbrinae: 1 genus, 1 species. Heimbra and Symbra are the only two genera in Heimbrinae and were revised by Stage and Snelling (1986) who discussed and gave keys to 5 additional species in the Neotropics.

Eurytominae: 20 genera, 237 species. Of these species, at least 92 belong to Eurytoma, the most commonly taken genus of the family. In 1967 Bugbee revised this group. The genus Tetramesa (64 species) was revised for the Nearctic Region some time ago (Phillips and Emery 1919, Phillips 1936). Formerly, the synonym Harmolita saw wide use in the literature as a replacement name for Isosoma, but both have since been synonymized under Tetramesa (Claridge 1958). This genus has been called both Harmolita and Tetramesa; the Europeans generally use the latter (and correct) name and Americans the former. The genus Sycophila contains 40 species and was revised in 1932 by Balduf (as Eudecatoma). The largely Neotropical genus Bephratelloides (with 1 Nearctic species) was revised by Grissell and Schauff (1990) with revisions by Grissell and Foster (1996).
STATISTICS: Number of world species: >1400 (250 Nearctic); number of world genera: about 87 (20 Nearctic).

COLLECTING: Eurytomids are commonly reared from conspicuous galls of almost any insect, as well as those hidden in flower heads (especially Asteraceae) such as tephritids make. Seeds of certain plants (e.g. Rhus, Vitis, Medicago, Ceanothus) may yield seed-feeders. Sweeping grasses and meadows generally produces several genera and species of eurytomids including the phytophagous species that attack grass and the eurytomid parasites of these species.

DISTRIBUTION: This is a common family, widespread throughout the world. It is perhaps better represented in temperate climates than tropical ones (>250 Nearctic species vs. >130 Neotropical).

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