Creagrura Townes, 1971 and Ptilobaptus Townes, 1971 (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) from Brazilian Amazon: new records and comments about morphological variation

Abstract Creagrura nigripes Townes, 1971 is recorded for the first time for the Brazilian Amazon, in the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará and Roraima. Ptilobaptus cinctus Townes, 1971 is registered for the first time in Brazil. Additionally, diagnosis, digital images, distribution maps, as well as comments on intraspecific morphological variations in the species are provided.


INTRODUCTION
Cremastinae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) are greatly represented in tropical and subtropical regions but are scarcer in regions with low temperatures (Gauld, 2000).Species with known biology act as koinobiont endoparasitoids, mainly of Lepidoptera larvae, and mostly parasitize hosts that live in curled leaves, young shoots, and soft fruits.Some species are known also to parasitize aquatic lepidopteran larvae (Gauld, 2000;Fernandes et al., 2018).Due to their wide variety of hosts, they are considered important biological control agents and are, among the Ichneumonidae, one of the most used subfamilies for this purpose (Narolsky, 2002).
Ptilobaptus Townes, 1971 is a small Neotropical genus with four described species: Ptilobaptus dentifer Townes, 1971 recorded for Trinidad and Venezuela; Ptilobaptus cinctus Townes, 1971 for Peru and Costa Rica; Ptilobaptus pamelae Gauld, 2000 for Costa Rica; and Ptilobaptus solaniphilus Gauld, 2000 for México and Costa Rica (Yu et al., 2016).As far as is known, Chrysomelidae (Coleoptera) are the only host record for the genus, even though it is still unknown at what stage the larva is attacked (Gauld, 2000).
To date, Ptilobaptus has never been recorded for Brazil, and Creagrura, which has been recorded for the country, has only a generic record for the Brazilian Amazon, without any species-level identification (Antunes & Fernandes, 2020).The aim of this work is to expand the geographic distribution records of these genera in the Brazilian Amazon and discuss about intraspecific variations.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
This study was based on material deposited in Invertebrate Collection of Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia -INPA, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil (M.L. Oliveira curator).
The specimens were identified based on the original description by Townes (1971) and using Gauld's (2000) taxonomic key and were photographed with the aid of a Leica DMC4500 digital camera attached to a Leica M205A stereomicroscope and combined using the Leica Application Suite V4.10.0 and/or Helicon Focus 7.0 Pro software to align the images obtained in different planes of extended focus.The propodeum images were obtained through Low Vacuum Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), where the specimens were not metalized for the procedure, so the pins containing the specimens were fixed in modeling clay bases, which were adhered in metallic supports (stubs), in this way, they were photographed through the Scanning Electronic Microscope TESCAN®️ Model VEGA3 of INPA.
The geographic distribution maps were generated in the SimpleMappr software (Shorthouse, 2010), with the georeferencing data taken from the specimen labels, except, when these were not available, so approximate coordinates were obtained from Google Earth web software.For the distribution of species (*) was used to emphasize the new records.In order to obtain the species distribution data, information was taken from the labels and pertinent literature in the section "Examined material".Diagnosis: This species can be distinguished by the combination of the following characters: mandible slightly twisted, with a wide ventral flap; scutellum with strongly raised lateral longitudinal carinae (Fig. 1C); female with ovipositor very short, strongly curved downwards, being approximately 0.3 times as shorter as the hind tibia (Fig. 1A).(2000), who analyzed 87 specimens from Costa Rica, and we also treat them here as intraspecific variations.However, these differences deserve to be evaluated more in-depth in the future, using also molecular data as they can reveal the presence of cryptic species.In addition, a broader sampling of specimens in other environments and biomes is needed to characterize these variations more robustly.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Geographic distribution of Creagrura nigripes Townes, 1971.Legend: Brazilian state records are highlighted in gray.The circles represent the specimens: red for new records and blue for previous records.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Geographic distribution of Ptilobaptus cinctus Townes, 1971.Legend: Brazilian state records are highlighted in gray.The circles represent the specimens: red for new records and blue for previous records.