The Wharton Lab

Merotrachys Fischer, 1972: 32, 65. Type species: Opius laetatorius Fischer, 1958: 312-313 (original designation).

Type locality of type species: Czechoslovakia, Bukovany; type in Narodni Museum, Praha.

Initially proposed by Fischer (1972) as a subgenus of Opius, then later as a subgenus of Utetes (Fischer 1998: 33). Treated by Tobias (1998) and Li et al. (2013) as a synonym of Phaedrotoma.

The type species was given as Opius laetatorius Fischer in Fischer’s (1972) Palaearctic monograph but later (Fischer 1977) he gave the type species as Opius melanagromyzae Fischer, 1966: 229-232 (type locality of type species: Madagascar; type in Geneva). The first designation of a type species appears to be Fischer (1972: 65), which predates Fischer’s (1972) Palaearctic monograph by several months. In Fischer (1972), the type species of several subgenera are designated in a supplementary list at the end of the article. These appear to me to be valid, though Fischer apparently did not think so since in some cases (such as for Merotrachys), the type species that was designated was not included in the geographically limited keys in the main body of the article. Li et al. (2013) list the type species as laetatorius but without comment.

The type species of Merotrachys is characterized by the absence of the mid-dorsal portion of the occipital carina and absence of a dorsope on metasomal T1, absence of a mesoscutal midpit, absence of a sculptured precoxal sulcus, presence of an exposed labrum, presence of sculpture on metasomal T2 and T3 (at least in the female), presence of sculpture on the propodeum, and absence of a distinct basal tooth or lobe on the mandible ventrally. Fore wing m-cu is weakly postfurcal.

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 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.