New record of Thysanus ater (Hym.: Signiphoridae) parasitoid of Lepidosaphes malicola Borckh from Iran (short report)

The hard scale, Lepidosaphes malicola Borckh (Hem.: Diaspididae) is one of serious pests of orchards in Iran. This pest sucking tree's sap causes physiological problem of trees and finally cause it's die. In the study of parasitic wasps of this pest in the northern parts of East-Azarbaijan province in 2010 (May-June), some infested scale insects on apple trees were collected from Komarsofla of Jolfa (y = 4291738, x =38s586294). Rearing of parasitoids were made in laboratory condition. Emerged parasitoids were transferred to vials contained ethanol and were identified by second author (HL). It was identified as Thysanus ater Walker, 1840 (Hym.: Chalcidoidea, Signiphoridae). This species has reported from Europe, Turkey and India (2) but is new for Iranian fauna. Its important morphological characters are as follow: length 0.75mm, body generally dark brown, fore wing in about basal half infuscated, rest hyaline, head 1.3X as broad as frontovertex width, frontovertex width 0.63X of length of antennal clava, antennal pedicel 0.7X of scape length, F1-3 and annelliform, F4 quadrate, clava 2.29X of scape length, fore wing about 3X as long as broad, with marginal fringe about as long as wing width, hind wing about 8X as long as broad, with marginal fringe about 2.5X as long as wing width, ovipositor 3.27X as long as mid tibia, 1.98X longer than hind tibia (1). These specimens were deposited in Insect collection of Department of Plant Protection, Agricultural and Natural Resources Research of East-Azarbaijan, Tabriz, Iran.