A world revision of the Pycnostigminae (Cynipoidea: Figitidae) with descriptions of seven new species 

A revision of Anacharoides Cameron, 1904 (Hymenoptera, Figitidae) with a description of a new species

“…Consistent with other species of Anacharoides, A. striaticeps and A. pallida have been collected throughout sub-Saharan Africa; these species diff er from their congeners, however, by their presence in Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen (A. striaticeps) and the Canary Islands (A. pallida). Th is distribution data is consistent with that of other fi gitids: the pycnostigmines Tylosema Kieff er and Trjapitziniola Kovalev were both recorded from beyond sub-Saharan Africa (Tylosema recorded from Algeria, Trjapitziniola from the United Arab Emirates and Armenia (Buffi ngton and van Noort 2007;Kovalev 1995), and the eucoilines Gronotoma nitida Quinlan, G. lana Quinlan and Nordlanderia plowa Quinlan occur in Africa as well as the Arabian Peninsula, India and southeast Asia (Buffington, pers. obsv.).…”

Revision of Khoikhoiinae (Hymenoptera, Braconidae)

“…Th ese biomes have been recognized as globally important biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al 2000;Latimer 2005), as well as a center of distribution and endemism for plants (Cowling et al 1998), and numerous invertebrate taxa, including the fi gitid subfamily Pycnostigminae and the recently discovered insect order Mantophasmatodea, both groups having their center of species richness in the Cape Region (Picker et al 2002, Buffi ngton and van Noort 2007, Damgaard et al 2008. It is plausible that the Khoikhoiinae may have diversifi ed with the evolution and radiation of the Cape Floristic Region 3-5 million years ago (Goldblatt 1997;Linder et al 1992;Linder 2003).…”

Afrotropical Cynipoidea (Hymenoptera)

“…The lack of knowledge in cynipoid systematics is exemplified by the recent revisions that have increased the number of described species (Pycnostigminae: Buffington and van Noort 2007; Anacharoides : Buffington and van Noort 2009; Stentorceps : Nielsen and Buffington 2011) as well as the description of a new genus (Buffington 2012). As a consequence of the under-documentation of the region’s diversity, the process of unraveling the biology of the Afrotropical cynipoid wasps is also in its infancy.…”

“…Quinlan’s papers followed Nordlander’s (1982 and papers therein), providing the first treatment of Afrotropical cynipoids that employed phylogenetic considerations (Quinlan 1986, 1988). More recently there have been only smaller taxonomic group revisions: Ronquist (1995) on Liopteridae (worldwide); Allemand et al (2002) on Afrotropical Leptopilina ; Ros-Farré and Pujade-Villar (2006) on world Prosaspicera ; Liu et al (2007) on Paramblynotus ; Buffington and van Noort (2007) on Pycnostigminae; Buffington and van Noort (2009) on Anacharoides ; Nielsen and Buffington (2011) on Stentorceps ; Paretas-Martinez et al (2009) and Pujade-Villar and Ferrer-Suay (2012) on Afrotropical Dilyta ; Ferrer-Suay et al (2012, 2013) on Afrotropical Alloxysta ; or single taxa added Buffington (2010, 2012), Jimenez and Pujade-Villar (2008); Pujade-Villar (2012); and Mata-Casanova et al (2014). Buffington and van Noort (2012) and van Noort and Buffington (2013) treated the Afrotropical Liopteridae to the species level.…”