Megastigmus pistaciae Walker

(Life: Kingdom: Metazoa (animals); Phylum: Arthropoda; Class: Hexapoda; Order: Hymenoptera; Superfamily: Chalcidoidea; Family: Megastigmidae; Genus: Megastigmus)

Megastigmus pistaciae Haliday, Walker, 1869 [nomen nudum].
Megastigmus pistaciae Walker, 1871. Syntypes in the Natural History Museum, London (BMNH). Type locality: ‘South of France" and ‘Tuscany'
Trogocarpus ballestrerii Rondani, 1877. Lectotype (Bouček, 1974). Type locality: Italy (La Specola, Firenze). Synonymy by Masi, 1934.

Female

Male

Photographs © Alain Roques (INRA, France).

Distribution	Kenya (introduced). Native to the Palaearctic region: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bulgaria, Iran, China, Corsica, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy (including Sicily), Israel, Morocco, Portugal, former Soviet Union: from Crimea and Transcaucasia to Turkmenia and Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, former Yugoslavia: Croatia, Montenegro (Roques & Skrzypczyńska, 2003). Nearctic region: California and Mexico (introduced)
Biology	Develops in seeds of Pistacia spp. (Anacardiaceae). Reared from seeds of Pistacia lentiscus subsp. emarginata(Anacardiaceae) in Kenya (above). Photograph © Robert Copeland (ICIPE, Kenya).
References	Masi, L. 1934. Nota sur Calcididi dell’Isola di Rodi. Bollettino della Societa` Entomologica Italiana 66: 210. Roques A, Skrzypczyńska M 2003. Seed-infesting chalcids of the genus Megastigmus Dalman (Hymenoptera: Torymidae) native and introduced to Europe: taxonomy, host specificity and distribution. Journal of Natural History 37: 127–238. doi: 10.1080/713834669 Roques A, Copeland RS, Soldati L, Denux O, Auger-Rozenberg M-A 2016. Megastigmus seed chalcids (Hymenoptera, Torymidae) radiated much more on Angiosperms than previously considered. I- Description of 8 new species from Kenya, with a key to the females of Eastern and Southern Africa. ZooKeys 585: 51–124. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.585.7503. Walker, F. 1871. Notes on Chalcidiae. Part II—Eurytomidae and Torymidae (London: E. W. Newman), pp. 19–36.
Credits	Photographs © Alain Roques (INRA, France) or Robert Copeland (ICIPE, Kenya). Map illustration © Simon van Noort (Iziko Museums of South Africa).

Web author Simon van Noort (Iziko South African Museum)

Citation: van Noort, S. 2025. WaspWeb: Hymenoptera of the World. URL: www.waspweb.org (accessed on <day/month/year>).

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