New records of chalcidid (Hymenoptera: Chalcididae) pupal parasitoids from India

BACKGROUND Chalcidids are one of the most important parasitoids of pupae of agriculturally important pests belonging to orders like Lepidoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. Such an important group has not been studied consistently by any team of workers from any country apart from the notable contributions by Boucek, Steffan, Delvare and Narendran. (Boucek 1988, Steffan 1973, Delvare 1992 and Narendran 1989). On a personal note, Dr. John S Noyes of Natural History Museum London agrees with this view as expressed with the second author and hence we felt that we can initiate further work on this group within India. We currently hold hundreds of unidentified specimens of this family in our department collection confirming that we will have much work to do over a long period of time. NEW INFORMATION New distribution records of Chalcididae from Andhra Pradesh (Brachymeria megaspila, B. minuta, Dirhinus anthracia and D. auratus), Bihar (B. podagrica, B. excarinata, B. hearseyi, D. anthracia, D. auratus, D. pilifer, Epitranus erythrogaster and Psilochalcis carinigena), Karnataka (B. apicicornis), Manipur (B. euploeae, D. auratus and E. erythrogaster), Mizoram (B. euploeae and D. anthracia), Nagaland (B. euploeae), Himachal Pradesh (B. alternipes), and Tamil Nadu (B. apicicornis, D. anthracia, D. deplanatus, D. pilifer, D. bakeri, E. observator, E. elongatulus, P. keralensis and P. soudanensis) and union territories Andaman & Nicobar Islands (B. podagrica, B. excarinata, E. erythrogaster and P. carinigena) and Pudhucherry (B. albicrus, D. anthracia, D. auratus, E. erythrogaster and P. kerelensis) are documented from the unidentified material mentioned above.