Loboscelidiinae is one of the most aberrant and poorly understood groups of Chrysididae. Even the family placement of Loboscelidia Westwood has varied considerably over the years. Throughout this entire period, as recounted by Day (1978), none of the authors involved recognized the difference between the sexes. Maa and Yoshimoto (1961) treated them as separate genera, Loboscelidia (males) and Scelidoloba Maa and Yoshimoto (females). These wasps are strongly sexually dimorphic, making

more »

... of the sexes difficult. Males have a long slender flagellum and tend to be less robust looking than females. The female flagellum is short, flattened and broad. In addition, the sexes do not appear to share the same modifications of the face, mesopleuron, legs and scutellum within a species. However, the wing venation and development of the notauli is apparently the same in conspecific males and females. To further complicate matters fewer than 10% of the specimens in collections are female. Loboscelidia is characterized by having the antennae insert mid face; head prolonged posteriorly into a necklike projection; pronotum not freely hinged to scutum; tegulae very large, covering both wing bases and held in place by a ridge on the mesopleuron; mesopleuron smooth without sculpturing; propodeum without horizontal dorsal surface and with shelflike lateral projections; forewing lacking a stigma and costal vein, and the abdomen with 4 (females) or 5 (males) external gastral segments. A complete revision of this group would be premature at this point. However, there are a large number of new taxa in this subfamily, which need to be published in anticipation of a monograph on the family being prepared by myself and R. M. Bohart. Specimens were borrowed from the following institutions and individuals, type repositories are indicated by capital letters: Academia Sinica, Institute of Zoology Insect Collection, Beijing, 67