Leprosa Kim & La Salle

Distribution

Introduced to South Africa and Italy. Probably native to Australia.

Biology

Originally reported as a seed gall inducer in capsules of Eucalyptus species (Kim & La Salle, 2008), usually associated with two other genera of seed galling tetrastichines: Quadrastichodella and Moona; it has now been established to more likely be a parasitoid within the Quadrastichodella nova gall community on Eucalyptus camaldulensis, also comprising the parasitoids Megastigmus zebrinus and a Aprostocetus species (Klein et al, 2015).

References

Kim, I.-K., & LaSalle, J. 2008. A new genus and species of Tetrastichinae (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) inducing galls in seed capsules of Eucalyptus. Zootaxa 1745: 63–68.

Klein H, Hoffmann JH, Neser S & Dittrich-Schroder G. 2015. Evidence that Quadrastichodella nova (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) is the only gall inducer among four hymenopteran species associated with seed capsules of Eucalyptus camaldulensis (Myrtaceae) in South Africa. African Entomology 23: 207–223. doi: 10.4001/003.023.0117

Mansfield S. 2016. New communities on eucalypts grown outside Australia. Frontiers in Plant Science. 7: 1812. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2016.01812.

Credits

Photographs © Il-Kwon Kim (CSIRO Entomology).

Map illustration © Simon van Noort (Iziko Museums of South Africa).