Setabara

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Taxonomy

Family: Tenthredinidae
Family common name: common sawflies
Subfamily: Heterarthrinae
Tribe: Fenusini
Genus: Setabara Ross, 1951
Subgenera: none

Background

The Tenthredinidae are the most species-rich family and are found throughout the world, in all continents but Antarctica. They are known as the “common sawflies.” They can generally be recognized by a cylindrical body and long, segmented antennae. Otherwise, they come in a variety of colors, sizes, and forms (Goulet 1992).

Sawflies in the Heterarthrinae subfamily are generally small and dark-colored. Many species of this family are economic pests of trees and shrubs and can be characterized by their skeletonizing or leaf-mining larval feeding behaviors. Heterarthrinae adults can be distinguished from those of other subfamilies by wing venation (Smith 1971a).

Setabara is an uncommon genus that is monotypic in North America. Setabara histrionica is uncommonly collected and very small, about 3–4 mm in length. The species is completely black with hyaline wings (Wei and Niu 2014).

Diversity

There are three described species worldwide. One occurs in North America (Taeger et al. 2010).

Diagnostic characteristics

Subfamily characters

• angle of intersection of veins Cu1 and 1m-cu between 80°–110° (Goulet 1992)
• cell M slightly constricted at apex; veins m and 1m-cu not parallel (Goulet 1992)
• intersection of M and M+Cu and intersection of Rs+M and R widely separated (Goulet 1992)
• fore wing vein 2r present (Goulet 1992)

Genus characters​

• antennal pedicel longer than wide (Smith 1971a)
• third antennal segment longer than fourth (Smith 1971a)
• occipital ridge absent (Goulet 1992)
• fore wing veins 2A and 3A incomplete and curved upwards (Smith 1971a)
• hind wing cell R1 closed, not open to margin (Smith 1971a)
• hind wing anal cell present (Smith 1971a)
• tarsal claw with small basal lobe (Smith 1971a)
• tarsal claw simple (Smith 1971a)

May be confused with

The genus appears similar to the many small, black genera of Heterarthrinae. Setabara histrionica can be distinguished by the black tegulae, closed radial cell of the hind wing, and the small, inconspicuous lobe at the base of the tarsal claw (Goulet 1992).

Exotic pest species of concern

none

Host associations

Setabara histrionica adults have been collected from Prunus spp. (cherry, plum) (Smith 1971a), and reared from Prunus emarginata.

Life history

unknown

Distribution

World: The three species are North American, Indian, and Chinese, respectively (Taeger et al. 2018). Setabara clypeiambus occurs in Arunachal Pradesh, India (Saini and Ahmad 2013), and S. sinica occurs in Zhejiang, China (Wei and Niu 2014).

North America: Setabara histrionica occurs in the western United States, with records from California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington (Smith 1971a).

Map data from: GBIF.org (29 October 2019) GBIF Occurrence Download Setabara and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Entomology Collection (USNM)

Details about data used for maps can be found here.