Amphibolips palmeri species dubia

The type material is presumably lost (Buffington pers. com.).

This species was described from a single specimen extracted from a gall collected from an unidentified Quercus species by Basset (1890). According to the author, the gall was donated by Mr. B. Pickman Mann and had the following label: “Summit of Sierra Madre, Chihuahua, México. Winter 1885–86, Dr. Edward Palmer”. Beutenmüller (1909) in his revision of the Amphibolips of North America broadened the distribution of this species to Guadalajara (Jalisco, México) for a gall deposited in the American Museum of Natural History, but did not add any new information to the description of the species. Amphibolips palmeri was not mentioned in Kinsey (1937) paper on Amphibolips of México.

In the latest studies on Amphibolips (Melika et al. 2011; Nieves-Aldrey et al. 2012) as well as in this study, the type material of the species was not found. Concerning to the gall, it is a large spherical spongious bud gall. Light yellowish brown; the outer shell thin but firm. Internally soft spongious tissue. Larval chamber round embedded in the spongious tissue. Diameter: 35 to 70 mm.

Remarks. According to Melika et al. (2011), this species closely resembles A. dampfi and might well be synonymous. The type (female) of A. palmeri is lost, nevertheless the adults and galls descriptions are consistent. For the moment, this species is considered as species dubia until the type material appears, or new data can be examined.

- 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)^©