The Wharton Lab

Austroopius Szépligeti, 1900: 64 . Type species: Austroopius novaguineensis Szépligeti, 1900 (subsequent designation by Viereck 1914: 18).

Type locality of type species: Papua New Guinea, Berlinhafen (= Lemien) and Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen (= Madang), with a color variety from Erima, Astrolabe Bay. Lectotype male in National Museum of Natural History, Budapest.

Original spelling of the type species was Nova-Guineensis.

Initially described Szépligeti, 1900: 64 as a genus and subsequently retained as a separate genus in Fischer’s classification (e.g. Fischer 1963, 1966, 1972, 1987). Reduced to subgenus of Psyttalia by Wharton (1987). Later, Wharton (1997) expressed concern about whether species groups within Psyttalia could be readily placed within the existing subgeneric classification, and left the question open as to whether subgenera should be recognized. Wharton (2009) later abandoned subgenera for Psyttalis and included the species previously placed in Austroopius in his Psyttalia fletcheri species group.

Present status: synonym of Psyttalia.

Austroopius was originally established on the basis of an unusual thickening of fore wing 2RS (Fig. 1). Otherwise, the originally included species are typical of Psyttalia. Detailed examination by Wharton of species such as Psyttalia fijiensis (Fullaway) demonstrated that the thickened fore wing 2RS is somewhat variable, with the thickening barely or not at all detectable in some specimens.

This page was assembled by Bob Wharton, Andrew Ly, and Danielle Restuccia. It is part of a review of the genera of World Opiinae, conducted at Texas A&M University. We are particularly grateful to Xanthe Shirley, Patricia Mullins, Trent Hawkins, Lauren Ward, Cheryl Hyde, Karl Roeder, and Andrea Walker, who did nearly all of the imaging (together with Danielle) for this project. Matt Yoder and Istvan Miko provided guidance on databasing issues associated with our use of mx and HAO respectively. This project would not have been possible without the kindness of many curators at museums throughout the world who gave generously of their time to Bob Wharton and his students. In particular, I thank Henry Townes (deceased) and David Wahl (American Entomological Institute, Gainesville), Gordon Nishida (Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu), Norm Penny, and Bob Zuparko (California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco), Bill Mason (deceased), Mike Sharkey, Andrew Bennett, and Henri Goulet (Canadian National Collection, Ottawa), Paul Dessart (deceased) (Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Brussels), Marc De Meyer (Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika, Tervuren), Axel Bachmann (Museo Argentino de Ciencias Natureles, Buenos Aires), Eberhard Koenigsmann (deceased) and Frank Koch (Museum fuer Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universitaet, Berlin), J. Casevitz Weulersse and Claire Villemant (Museum National d’Historie Naturelle, Paris), James O’Connor (National Museum of Ireland, Dublin), Jenö Papp (National Museum of Natural History, Budapest), Kees van Achterberg (National Museum of Natural History, Leiden), Max Fischer, Herb Zettel, and Dominique Zimmermann (Naturhistorisches Museum, Wien), Per Persson and Lars-Åke Janzon (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm), Ermenegildo Tremblay (Silvestri Collection, Portici), Erasmus Haeselbarth (Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns, Munich), Tom Huddleston and Gavin Broad (The Natural History Museum, London), Paul Marsh and Robert Kula (USDA Systematic Research Laboratory and US National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D. C.), Vladimir Tobias (deceased) and Sergey Belokobylskij (Zoological Institute, Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg), and Roy Danielsson (Zoological Institute, Department of Systematics, Lund) for facilitating loans and general assistance associated with examination of holotypes and other material in their care. This work was supported largely by NSF/PEET DEB 0328922 and 0949027, with REU supplements 0723663, 1026618, 1213790, and 1313933 (to Wharton). Page last updated July, 2015. The material on this page is freely available, but should be acknowledged if used elsewhere.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers DEB 9300517, DEB (PEET) 9712543, DEB (PEET) 0328922 with REU supplements 0723663 and 1026618 and DEB 0949027 with REU supplements 1213790 and 1313933. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.