Morphology, biology and phylogeny of Xenos gadagkari sp.nov. (Strepsiptera: Xenidae): an endoparasite of Polistes wattii (Hymenoptera: Vespidae).

Abstract

We report the morphology, biology and phylogeny of a new strepsipteran endoparasitic species: Xenos gadagkari, from the primitively eusocial wasp Polistes wattii from Punjab, India. We report a high abundance of the endoparasite in P. wattii population of our study area and provide the morphological description of adult males, male puparium and neotenic females. This species is sufficiently different from other Xenos sp reported from various social wasps and therefore, constitutes a new species, X. gadagkari Sen and Nain, sp. nov. Although there are a few reports of Strepsipteran parasites from India, this is the first confirmational report with a thorough description of a Xenos species from the Indian population of P. wattii and underscores the need for further investigation of the diversity and distribution of this group in India. Our findings contribute to the growing body of knowledge on Xenos and provide a foundation for future behavioural, microbial and molecular studies on this enigmatic group of insects.