The Wharton Lab

Westwoodia romani Wharton and Roeder, 2008 in Wharton and Roeder, 2008 in Wharton et al. (2008: 14)

Westwoodia
Westwoodiini
Ctenopelmatinae

Westwoodia romani is known from only four specimens.
The species is named after A. Roman, who first recognized it as distinct from Westwoodia ruficeps.

An additional specimen Adelaide that Roman labelled as “not ruficeps” has the occipital carina absent medially (Fig. 8 above), and is somewhat intermediate between W. romani and W. longipes, emphasizing the close relationship between the two species. This Adelaide specimen has a well-developed fore wing areolet, and the remainder of the occipital carina well developed, and can thus be readily assigned to W. romani. Morley (1913) specifically mentioned the unusual features of this specimen in his redescription of W. ruficeps. For additional information, see the web page for W. longipes.

The occipital region is more densely setose in the few specimens available for study than it is in other species. However, this area is difficult to see without removing the head and many of the specimens are in poor condition. Thus, this character needs to be examined more closely with additional, fresh material to assure that it is not an artifact of the preservation of the material at hand.

Some additional figures, not used in the above section, are included here.

First flagellomere of antenna (Fig. 1) densely setose throughout; interantennal flange absent (Fig. 2), replaced by well-developed, Y-shaped carina (Figs 3, 4); lateral swelling of frons with carinate inner margin bordering the deep frontal depression, the carina especially well-developed near ocelli (arrow, Fig. 5); face distinctly punctate medially (Figs 6, 7), though not as densely as in W. gauldi; occipital carina complete and distinctly developed throughout (Fig. 8, but see Fig. 9); female fore tarsus long, slender, and flattened (Figs 10, 11), not appreciably different from male (Fig. 12); hind tarsus as in Figs. 13-15; fore wing (Figs 16, 17) with stigma dark brown; fore wing areolet present, with 2m-cu arising near or proximal to middle; fore tarsus orange to yellow-orange (Figs 10-12), hind tarsus dark brown (Figs 13-15), mesosoma (Figs 18-21) black, metasoma dorsally, except for apical margin of terga, white to reddish basally (Figs 22-23), largely black apically.

Distinguished from all other species of Westwoodia by the combination of a densely setose occiput, presence of a sharply defined occipital carina, and an interantennal carina that is not elevated as a prominent flange. This species is most similar to W. longipes based on the sculptural details of the interantennal area and frons and the setal pattern on the occiput. However, W. longipes lacks the fore wing areolet.

See monograph on Westwoodia by Wharton et al. (2008).

Australia, known from ACT, South Australia, and Victoria.

Two of the paratypes, from Ringwood, Victoria, were apparently reared, probably from immature Pergidae (Hymenoptera), but the host is unfortunately not indicated on the label. The third paratype, from Adelaide, was reared from Perga dorsalis Leach. See next section.

While working on trigonalyids, Weinstein and Austin (1995) reared several individuals of Westwoodia from Perga dorsalis Leach (Hymenoptera: Pergidae) feeding on leaves of two species of Eucalyptus L’Hér. The single specimen we examined from their study proved to belong to the species we have described as W. romani. Two other individuals of W. romani were reared from an unidentified pergid by Raff, about a year after Raff published what appears to be her last work on pergid sawflies and their parasitoids (Schmidt and Smith 2006).

Holotype ♀ (ANIC):
top label = printed, black ink on white paper, 3 lines as follows:
Canberra A C T
11 Mar 1960
E F Riek

2nd label =printed and hand-written, black ink on white paper, 2 lines as follows:
Westwoodia
det. I. D. Gauld, 1984

Paratype ♀ (ANIC), 2 labels
top label = hand-written, black ink on white paper, 4 lines as follows:
From Brood 57
coll. Ringwood V
Emerged 12.3.36
J.W. Raff

2nd label = black ink on white paper, 2 lines (first hand-written, 2nd printed) as follows:
Westwoodia
det. I. D. Gauld, 1984

Paratype ♂ (ANIC), 2 labels
top label = hand-written, black ink on white paper, 4 lines as follows:
Brood 57
Ringwood
Emerged 11.3.36
JWR

2nd label = black ink on white paper, 2 lines (first hand-written, 2nd printed) as follows:
Westwoodia
det. I. D. Gauld, 1984

Paratype ♀ (WINC), 3 labels
top label = black ink on white paper, 4 lines, hand-written, as follows:
S. Aust. Naracoo®te
emeg. 7.iv.89
Colony 9
P. Weinstein

2nd label = black ink on white paper, 2 lines, hand-written, as follows:
ex pupa
Perga dorsalis

3rd label = black ink on white paper, 2 lines (first hand-written, 2nd printed) as follows:
Westwoodia
det. A.D. Austin

Schmidt, S. and Smith, D. R. 2006. An annotated systematic world catalogue of the Pergidae (Hymenoptera). Contributions of the American Entomological Institute 34(3): 1-207.

Weinstein, P. and A. D. Austin 1995. Primary parasitism, development and adult biology in the wasp Taeniogonalos venatoria Riek (Hymenoptera: Trigonalyidae). Australian Journal of Zoology 43: 541-555.

This page was assembled by Bob Wharton, and is part of a revision of the genus Westwoodia by Wharton, Karl Roeder, and Matt Yoder (Wharton et al. 2008). Kira Zhaurova analyzed the relationships among the Westwoodiini and Scolobatini as part of her M. S. thesis at Texas A&M University, completed in 2006. The material she borrowed for her thesis forms the basis for this revision of Westwoodia. We are grateful to John LaSalle (ANIC) and David Notton (BMNH) for the extended loan of the specimens noted above. This material is based upon work conducted at Texas A&M University and supported by the National Science Foundation’s PEET program under Grant No. 0328922 and associated REU supplement # 0616851. Page last updated February, 2011.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DEB 0328922 with REU supplement 0616851.
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.