The Wharton Lab

Aulonotus Ashmead, 1900: 368. Type species: Opius comatus Wesmael, 1835.

New name for Holconotus Foerster, 1862: 259 (preoccupied by Holconotus Schmidt-Goebel, 1846).

Type locality of type species: Belgium, Brussels; lectotype female in Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Brussels, designated by Wharton (1987).

Status unsettled: Treated as a subgenus of Opius by Fischer (1972) and later as a separate genus (Fischer 1998, 1999). Treated as a synonym of Xynobius by van Achterberg (2004) but Wharton (2006) and Walker and Wharton (2011) treat Xynobius as a subgenus of Eurytenes.

The placement of comatus in Xynobius apparently first appeared in Quicke et al. (1997), but without explanation and without mention of the implication that Aulonotus was thereby a synonym of Xynobius. A similar listing of comatus under Xynobius can be found in O’Connor et al. (1999). A more formal treatment of Aulonotus as a synonym of Xynobius appears in van Achterberg (2004). Fischer (1999) includes Aulonotus both in his key to genera of the Opius genus group and in his key to the subgenera of Opius section A. Wharton (2006: 333) noted the availability of Aulonotus when Xynobius and Eurytenes are defined in a very strict sense.

Aulonotus in the strict sense is an exceptionally speciose group, and includes several species that have the occipital carina complete dorsally and which therefore have been described under the name Euopius. Fischer (1972) characterized Aulonotus primarily on the basis of the presence of a mesoscutal midpit (Figs 7, 8), presence of a sculptured precoxal sulcus (Fig. 6), an exposed labrum (Figs 4, 5), and long notauli that meet posteriorly in the mesoscutal midpit (Fig. 7). The presence of a distinct dorsope (Figs 8-10) was likely the reason for the inclusion of Aulonotus in Xynobius by van Achterberg (2004) though rationale for the synonymy was not provided. In the type species of Xynobius and Eurytenes, T2 is rounded laterally, without a crease separating median and laterotergites. The T2 spiracle, perhaps as a consequence, appears laterally displaced. In the type species of Aulonotus, there is a crease separating median and laterotergites and the T2 spiracle is dorsally placed at the edge of the crease (Fig. 11), though manner of preservation affects viewing of this feature.

This page was assembled by Bob Wharton 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, Andrew Ly, 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 June, 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.