California Encyrtidae

Robert Zuparko

rz “at” berkeley.edu

Last updated January 2024

This site presents keys to morphospecies for most of the genera of Encyrtidae found in California. This is a work in progress, and is presented here to help further the discourse of Encyrtidae taxonomy in an informal manner. For many genera, I didn’t have access to holotypes, and thus I relied heavily upon written descriptions of the named species. For this reason alone, these keys should be considered provisional.

Unless otherwise noted, all keys are for females only. For each included genus, the key includes all described species recorded from California, as well as those taxa that I have been unable to recognize. The latter likely represent a combination of undescribed species plus described species with which I am unfamiliar. For these unrecognized taxa, I include the California county they were collected in, and a codon representing the institution where the specimens are held:

CAS California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA
CSCA California State Collection of Arthropods, Sacramento, CA
EMEC Essig Museum of Entomology, University of California, Berkeley, CA
RLZC Robert L. Zuparko personal collection (ultimately to be deposited in
EMEC)
SBBG Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, Santa Barbara, CA
SBMN Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, CA
UCDC Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis, CA
UCFC Stuart M. Fullerton Collection of Arthropods, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL
UCRC Entomology Research Museum, University of California, Riverside, CA
USNM National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC
USUC Utah State University Collection, Logan, UT

Genera represented in California by only a single species (whether described or unrecognized) are not included. For “multispecies” genera, I also list all the described species reported from the Nearctic Region (both endemic and introduced species), and their recorded distributions in the region (by Country and State/Province if known – I did not include any records from other regions), as well as any miscellaneous remarks that may be of taxonomic assistance, followed by a list of references cited. The delineation of which Mexican states fall in the Nearctic region follows guidelines used by the Department of Entomology of the California Academy of Sciences.

To date, the genera include (with the number of described/unrecognized species):

Acerophagus (13/17)
Adelencyrtus (2/0)
Aenasius (4/4)
Ageniaspis (2/3)
Anagyrus (10/31)
Aphycaspis (0/2)
Aphycoides (1/1)
Blastothrix (5/2)
Blepyrus (1/3)
Bothriothorax (3/3)
Cerapterocerus (0/2)
Ceraptroceroideus (1/2)
Cerchysiella (2/1)
Cerchysius (1/1)
Charitopus (0/2)
Cheiloneurus (8/10)
Cirrhencyrtus (1/1)
Coccidencyrtus (2/0)
Coelopencyrtus (1/1)
Copidosomopsis (2/1)
Dicarnosis (1/1)
Discodes (2/5)
Echthroplexiella (0/2)
Encyrtus (4/1)
Ericydnus (2/1)
Formicencyrtus (2/0)
Ginsiana (1/3)
Gyranusoidea (3/5)
Habrolepis (1/1)
Holcencyrtus (1/2)
Homalotyus (5/5)
Isodromus (3/1)
Lamennaisia (1/1)
Mayridia (0/2)
Meromyzobia (1/4)
Metaphycus (31/31)
Microterys (6/6)
Oobius (4/7)
Ooencyrtus (2/17)
Parablastothrix (1/1)
Prionomastix (1/2)
Prionomitus (2/0)
Prochiloneurus (2/3)
Pseudencyrtus (0/11)
Pseudleptomastix (1/6)
Psyllaephagus (4/20)
Rhopus (0/3)
Saera (1/2)
Syrphophagus (2/14)
Tetracnemoidea (3/3)
Tetracnemus (1/5)
Trichomasthus (1/6)
Tyndarichus (1/1)
Zaomma (1/1)
Zarhopalus (3/0)

(I have no plans to treat Copidosoma).