Orgilus absonus Muesebeck 1970

Nev., Calif.

Orgilus absonus

In general appearance this species is very similar to rostratus, new species, and dreisbachi, new species, which it resembles in head shape, in the very short maxillary palpi, in the stout abdomen with a very short and broad second tergite, in the unusually short and broad hind femora and in the short ovipositor. It differs significantly from those species, however, in lacking even a vestige of the third abscissa of cubitus and in its virtually immargined occiput.

FEMALE.—Length about 3 mm. Head not wider than thorax, in dorsal view about twice as broad as long and in front view narrowly triangular; eyes very large; face about 0.8 as wide as eye height, shallowly punctate and with an indistinct and incomplete median longitudinal keel; clypeus not distinctly separated from face; malar space hardly one-third as long as eye height, finely alutaceous and shiny; temples smooth, not more than half as wide as eyes; head rather strongly excavated behind; occiput smooth, not carinately margined except very weakly below on the sides; antennae shorter than the body, 24- to 26-segmented in the available specimens, some of the preapical segments fully as broad as long, and the apical segment with a short terminal spicule; maxillary palpi very short, barely as long as eye height.

Thorax compact; mesoscutum rather uniformly covered with closely placed, minute and very shallow punctures; notauli sharply impressed, minutely foveolate; disc of scutellum large and rather flat, sculptured like mesoscutum; propodeum finely granulose laterally, a little rugulose medially; side of pronotum, mesopleuron and metapleuron shagreened; longitudinal furrow of mesopleuron weak or even indistinct, usually indicated by an incomplete row of very shallow punctures. Hind coxa shiny, nearly smooth; hind femur barely more than three times as long as broad; longer calcarium of hind tibia not quite half as long as metatarsus; tarsal claw slender, without a subbasal tooth but weakly angulate beyond middle. Radial cell on wing margin just about as long as stigma; second abscissa of radius slightly arched and not quite on a line with intercubitus; not even a vestige of third abscissa of cubitus present; nervulus just postfurcal; hind wing slightly less than five times as long as wide; lower abscissa of basella much longer than nervellus and nearly or quite half as long as mediella.

Abdomen short and stout; first tergite about as broad at apex as long, entirely minutely confluently punctate, the dorsal keels not developed; second tergite about twice as wide at base as long, finely granulose or minutely confluently punctate like the first; third and following tergites sculptured like the second but successively more weakly so; ovipositor sheath about as long as abdomen.

Brown; head black or blackish; antennae black; palpi pale; tegulae and wing bases testaceous; wings hyaline; lateral lobes of mesoscutum and the pleura sometimes darkened basally; legs brown, hind tibiae apically and all tarsi darkened.

MALE.—Essentially like the female, but the antennae are more slender and as long as the body, and the thorax is much darker, usually concolorous with the head.

HOLOTYPE.—USNM 70138.

DISTRIBUTION.—Known only from the type-series, consisting of 13 females (one the holotype) and 3 males collected by P. H. Timberlake at Mill Creek, San Bernardino Mts., California, at 6000 feet, on Eriogonum.