Family: Siricidae
Subfamily: Siricinae
Genus: Sirex Linnaeus, 1760
Species: Sirex hispaniola Goulet, 2012
Common names: none
Sirex hispaniola is a rare species known only from a single specimen from the island of Hispaniola. The female has a mostly red abdomen and the male is unknown (Schiff et al. 2012).
See Sirex for genus-level diagnostic characteristics.
The male for this species is not known.
Females:
Sirex hispaniola can be distinguished from S. nigricornis’ pale form by the length of the second hind tarsomere and the relative length of the second hind pulvillus (Schiff et al. 2012).
none recorded
Hosts for Sirex hispaniola are unknown. Based on morphological characters, Schiff et al. (2012) hypothesize that the host is Pinus spp. (pine).
Female Sirex harbor symbiotic basidiomycete fungus in abdominal glands called mycangia. During oviposition, the site is inoculated with the fungus, which begins to decompose the surrounding wood. Larvae feed on the fungus, and in the process bore galleries through the wood (Johnson 1930, Schiff et al. 2012).
Larvae are creamy white and grub-like in appearance with a dark head capsule. As with adults, larvae possess a short dorsal horn on the posterior end of the body. The larvae bore galleries into wood, feeding until pupation and subsequent emergence. Throughout this process, the larvae use their horn to pack the tunnel behind them with sawdust. Emergence holes are perfectly circular. The fungal symbiont is carried in specialized organs in female larvae that develop into the mycangia after metamorphosis (Schiff et al. 2012).
The specific biology of S. hispaniola is unknown. The single captured specimen was found in mid-July (Schiff et al. 2012).
World: North America
North America: The single female specimen of S. hispaniola was found in Reserva Ebano Verde of the Cordillera Central of the Dominican Republic (Schiff et al. 2012).
No specific locality data was available for mapping the range of this species at the time of publication.
Sawfly Gen
