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Abstract
Fifteen new species of Encarsia are described: Encarsia asfar sp. nov., E. assamensis sp. nov., E. bolangera sp. nov., E. borkusiensis sp. nov.; E. brevicalcar sp. nov., E. farmani sp. nov., E. hitam sp. nov., E. hragila sp. nov., E. inida sp. nov., E. jowaiana sp. nov., E. khadijae sp. nov., E. meghalayana sp. nov., E. ossira sp. nov., E. reeda sp. nov. and E. sikkimiana sp. nov. Taxonomic accounts on 29 known species are given, of which nine are redescriptions while six are new records for India. The new records are as follows: E. asterobemisiae Viggiani and Mazzone, E. davidi Viggiani and Mazzone, E. diaspidicola (Silvestri), E. liliyingae Viggiani and Ren, E. lounsburyi (Berlese and Paoli) and E. nanjingensis Huang and Polaszek. Also, E. eurystoma Hayat is placed in synonymy with E. punicae Hayat, and E. opulenta (Silvestri) is excluded from Indian fauna as the material proved to be a misidentification for E. perplexa Huang and Polaszek. A key to the 79 (out of 83) Indian species of Encarsia is provided; of the four species not included, one species is considered incertae sedis and the other three are considered doubtful.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Prof. G. Viggiani, Departimento de Entomologia e Zoologia Agraria, Universita degli Studi di Napoli, Portici, Italy, Dr A. Polaszek, Department of Entomology, The Natural History Museum, London, England and Dr J. Heraty, University of California, Riverside, USA, for help as noted in the text. I am grateful to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, and Dr V.V. Ramamurthy, the National Coordinator of the Network Project on Insect Biosystematics, for financial assistance. I thank the Aligarh Muslim University and the Chairman, Department of Zoology, for providing research facilities.