Amphibolips fusus

[A photo of this gall appears on page 39 of the pdf]

Galls of A. fusus greatly differ from the galls of the other mentioned species. However, galls most closely resemble galls of A. durangensis, but differ by the smooth and even surface in A. fusus (with transversal ridges in A. durangensis), and both the peduncle and apical tip narrow gradually in A. fusus (peduncle and apical tip highly narrowed into acicular projections in A. durangensis).

Gall (Fig. 14E). Monolocular bud gall. Fusiform, 9–13 mm in diameter, with a peduncle and a fine tip. Outer shell thick, hard, light brown when mature, with smooth glabrous surface, without mottled surface. Internal tissue relatively soft and spongy; made up of dense irradiating fibers visible only at the base and apex; dense and compact at the central body of the gall where the space is mostly occupied by the larval chamber. Central, oval larval chamber (5.0–6.0 mm) relatively hard-walled.

Hosts. Quercus eduardi (original description) and new records on Q. crassipes and Q. laurina here.

Biology. Only females are known. The mature galls were collected in early June; adults were extracted dead in November (according to the original description); no adults were found in the newly collected galls.

Distribution. México: Ciudad de México, and Zacatecas states.

Remarks. Kinsey’s original description states that this species has POL 1.3x as long as OOL. Despite being true in the holotype, POL is equal to OOL in the new specimens that were reared from similar galls, on the same host plant. We attribute this difference to the intraspecific variability considering that no additional differences were detected. Nieves-Aldrey et al. (2012) differentiated this species based on the forewing colouration and F1 being 1.2x as long as F2. These characters became inaccurate to discriminate A. fusus, due to the discovery of additional species, described in this paper, possessing the same character states: A. cibriani Pujade-Villar 2018, A. bassae n. sp. and A. bromus n. sp. (see above)

- Victor Cuesta-Porta, Armando Equihua-Martinez, Edith Estrada-Venegas, David Cibrian-Tovar, Uriel Barrera-Ruiz, Salvador Ordaz-Silva, Imelda Virginia Lopez Sanchez, George Melika, Juli Pujade-Villar: (2020) Revision of the Amphibolips species of the 'nassa' complex from Mexico and central America (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae)^©