(begin long song and dance...)

This one keys out to Pseneo using either the Malloch (1) or Gittens (2) Psenini papers (both treat Pseneo as a subgenus of Psen). Character states from the these keys: cubitus of hind wing with its base proximal to the cubito-anal cross vein/median transverse vein, striations/rugose-reticulations on propodeum, punctate sculpture of meso-anepisternum, thickening of clypeal apex with 3 "thickened teeth". The oval hairs on the posterior apical surface of the hind femur mark this wasp as Pseneo rather than Psen.

In Malloch's subgenus Pseneo key (1), this wasp keys out to P. carolina with the following character states: scutellum not striate on any part of disk, petiole of abdomen red, tibiae and tarsi bright orange (vs. at least tibiae dark brown or fuscous).

Krombein's key rules out P. simplicicornus and P. kohlii leaving Psen (Pseneo) punctatus (= Pseneo punctatus in Bohart & Menke's nomenclature (3)). This wasp does not cleanly key out to one of Krombein's subspecies but it fits his description of Psen (Pseneo) punctatus carolina (4) (=Malloch's P. carolina).

Bethke et al. propose that Pseneo punctatus is "a species with ... substantial geographic variation which has not yet been sampled adequately to resolve the limits of the various forms..." (5). So... I'm calling this one Pseneo punctatus – at least until someone actually knowledgable tells me otherwise :-)

TIA

•larger image here


add'l info: Dr. Doug Yanega kindly responded to my request to review these photos and the ID. He responded "Definitive ID does require specimens under a microscope, but the summary you have there in BugGuide certainly exhibits "due diligence" in trying to arrive at an ID. "Pseneo punctatus" is almost certainly more than a single biological entity, they simply don't sort out nicely geographically or morphologically. That being said, IIRC, "true" punctatus is from the SE US and likely to run north along the Appalachian corridor. If you're looking at things from MD, and they don't key cleanly elsewhere, then punctatus is going to be the name to apply, with only a slim chance that down the road they may be assigned a different name, after someone revises the genus."