Kinseyella quercusobtusata, new species
Asexual female

[Photos of the gall appear on page 10 of the pdf]

Gall (Fig. 4). A leaf gall, almost always on the underside, usually attached to the midrib, more rarely on the lateral veins or leaf petiole. Usually one gall per leaf, sometimes two-three. Unilocular, approximately spherical, 20–40 mm in diameter, yellowish and tinged with pink and red when mature, the surface with dense rusty-brown felt-like pubescence. The gall is very fragile, with a very thin external wall. The hard larval chamber is 3–4 mm in diameter, with 2–3 mm thick hard wall, in rusty dense hairs and located in the centre of the gall, supported by numerous radiating brown fibres.

Biology. Only the asexual generation of this species is known, inducing leaf galls on Q. obtusata (Section Quercus ‘sensu stricto’). The gall starts to develop in summer and mature in autumn; adults start to emerge in late autumn and probably prolong the winter. This is the first record of a cynipid gallwasp on this endemic Mexican oak species, characteristics of which are given in Romero-Rangel et al. (2002), Flores-Maya et al. (2006) and Rodriguez-Rivera & Romero-Rangel (2007).

Distribution. Adults currently known only from Mexico: Estado de México. Galls were collected in the following counties: Tepotzotlan, Villa del Carbón, Chapa de Mota y Villa Nicolás Romero

- J. Pujade-Villar, Armando Equihua-Martínez, Cristhian Chagoyan, S. Romero-Rangel: (2010) A new genus of oak gallwasps, Kinseyella Pujade-Villar & Melika, with a description of a new species from Mexico (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini)^©