PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 103(4), 2001. pp. 962-967 A NEW SPECIES OF XIPHYDRIA LATREILLE (HYMENOPTERA: XIPHYDRIIDAE) REARED FROM RIVER BIRCH, BETULA NIGRA L., IN NORTH AMERICA David R. Smith and Nathan M. Schiff (DRS) Systematic Entomology Laboratory, PSI, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, % National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Insti-tution, Washington, DC 20560-0168, U.S.A. (e-mail:
[email protected]); (NMS) Center for Bottomland Hardwoods, Southern Hardwoods Laboratory, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, P.O. Box 227, Stoneville, MS 38776, U.S.A. Abstract. — Xiphydria decern, n. sp., is described and separated from other North Amer-ican species. It was reared from branches of river birch, Betula nigra, L. (Betulaceae) in Illinois. Key Words: Symphyta, woodborer, woodwasp, hardwood, birch, Illinois Larvae of Xiphydria Latreille bore and feed in the wood of small, dying or weak-ened tree branches. Most specimens are ob-tained by rearing, although adults some-times show up in Malaise trap collections. Some species are relatively host specific; consequently, discovering an undescribed species in a host plant for which the wood-boring fauna has not been studied can be expected. NMS reared several specimens of an unusual Xiphydria from river birch, Bet-ula nigra L., in southern Illinois. Although only three specimens have been reared, both sexes differ morphologically from all previously described species, and the spe-cies of host plant has not been recorded pre-viously for Xiphydria. Here we describe and name this species in support of ongoing research by NMS on wood-boring Hyme-noptera and their associated fungi. Xiphydria decern Smith and Schiff, new species (Figs. 1-4) Female. — Length, 9.0 mm. Head black with narrow apex of mandible; small oval spot posterior to each lateral ocellus; and broad stripe from lower gena near malar area extending on gena, but not adjacent to eye, to top of head behind eye white. Tho-rax black with only narrow white spot on posterior corner of pronotal angles. Legs black with extreme base of foretibia, basal third of mid-and hindtibiae, and basal half of outer surface of mid-and hindbasitarsus white. Abdomen orange with basal plates, sheath, and cercus black, and with infuscate spot on apical sternite. Wings lightly, uni-formly blackish; veins and stigma black. Antenna 14-segmented. Reticulate sculp-turation on head extending posterior to ocelli by about same distance as breadth of an ocellus; few ridges lateral to ocelli; re-ticulate sculpture on frons above antennae and between eyes (Fig. 1). Head in lateral view with 4-5 major striae on genae, few widely separated large punctures behind eyes; anteriorly protuberant; malar space (distance from eye to malar depression) less than width of first antennal segment (Fig. 2). Thorax with pronotum lacking sculpture on lower lateral half; punctures of mesepis-
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