The Wharton Lab

Physotarsus castilloi Gauld, 1997: 196-197. Holotype female in INBio.
Physotarsus castilloi: Yu and Horstmann 1997: 455 (catalog); Zhaurova and Wharton 2009: 9-10, 15-16 (redescription, inclusion in key to species).

Lateral ocelli separated by 0.5-0.6X their widest diameter from each other and about 1.6-1.7X their widest diameter from eye margin. Antennae with 30-32 flagellomeres. Pronotum and mesoscutum glabrous, impunctate. T1 about twice as long as broad. Head orange-brown with face infuscate medially and vertex entirely black. Mesosoma and metasoma orange, ventrally grading to yellowish. Hind legs orange with coxa and trochanter distally infuscate, tarsomeres entirely black. Fore wing very strongly yellowish, distally blackish infumate.

This species is most similar to P. claviger and P. bonillai in body sculpture and form of the clypeal margin. The fore wing of P. castilloi is distinctly yellow, with the apex infumate, similar to P. adriani, whereas the base of the wing is hyaline in P. bonillai and P. claviger.

As noted by Gauld (1997), P. castilloi is the only species of Costa Rican Physotarsus known from wet forests on the Pacific lowlands, though P. eliethi Gauld is found in a similar habitat on the Atlantic side.

Hosts unknown.

Material examined. Paratypes: COSTA RICA, Puntarenas Prov., Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve, 1 female, 10 km W of Pan American Highway on road to Rincon de Osa, 100m, iii-iv.1989 (Gauld) (BMNH); 1 male, 24 km W of Pan American Highway on road to Rincon de Osa, 200m, ii.1990 (Gauld) (BMNH).

This page was assembled by Bob Wharton and Kira Zhaurova, and is part of a revision of the genus Physotarsus (Zhaurova and Wharton 2009). Material examined for this revision was borrowed from the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, the American Entomological Institute, Gainesville (AEIC), The Natural History Museum, London, the U. S. National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D. C., and INBio, Costa Rica. We are particularly grateful to Ian Gauld for the extended loan of the specimens listed above, as well as to Matt Yoder for the electronic interface and to Heather Cummins and Mika Cameron for assistance with literature and figures. We would also like to acknowledge the kind assistance of Ian Gauld, David Wahl, Andrew Bennett, and Gavin Broad for information exchange about ichneumonids during the course of this work. Our use of PURLs (http://purl.oclc.org) for the web interface follows the example of their use in publications by Norm Johnson. The work was conducted at Texas A&M University and supported by NSF/PEET grant no. DEB 0328922 and associated REU supplement # 0723663. Page last updated October 2010.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DEB 0328922 with REU supplement DEB 0723663.
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.