vitelligera species group Gerstaecker 1874

vitelligera species group

Diagnosis. Females of this species group are identified by a unique combination of characters: head unarmed posterolaterally; mesonotum rounded laterally, lacking longitudinal medial carina; scutellar scale distinct, connected to anterior transverse carina; apex of middle and hind femora truncate; T2 having four integumental spots; gena carinate; pygidium broadly ovate. Males can be diagnosed by having the parameres conspicuously sinuous, with an isolated medial tuft of long setae ventrally; cuspis virtually straight and overall asetose, except for a small tuft of short setae apically. External characters include white meso- and metatibial spurs, truncate axilla, mesopleuron with blunt tubercle; hypopygium trapezoidal and T3–5 entirely clothed with white setae.

Included taxon. Traumatomutilla vitelligera (Gerstaecker, 1874).

Distribution. Traumatomutilla vitelligera has been recorded from six South American countries, but we have seen specimens only from semiarid regions of Ecuador, Peru and Chile.

Remarks. The vitelligera group is one of the three species groups of Traumatomutilla with only one species, T. vitelligera (Gerstaecker, 1874). As in T. diabolica (Gerstaecker, 1874), the mesosomal sculpture of T. vitelligera differs from other large-bodied Traumatomutilla by lacking the distinctive structures of the more diverse, large-bodied species groups [medial longitudinal mesonotal carina (indica), bilobate anterior transverse carina separated from scutellar scale (juvenilis), and lateral mesonotal tubercles (quadrinotata)]. The lectotype of T. vitelligera, however, has a conspicuous scutellar scale connected laterally with its anterolateral carinae, as in many species of the indica group. Additionally, aside from a few species found in northwestern Colombia, this is the only species in Traumatomutilla known west of the Andes.