New species of Eiphosoma Cresson 1865 (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae, Cremastinae) from Brazil.

Eiphosoma Cresson 1865 is a very species rich New World genus of Cremastinae (Ichneumonidae) comprising about 51 described neotropical species, 17 of which occur in Brazil (Costa Lima, 1953; Gauld, 2000; Yu et al., 2005; Triana and Ravelo, 2007). The tropical American species of Eiphosoma Cresson 1865 belong to nine distinct species group characterized by Gauld (2000). It is an easily distinctive and very common genus that occurs in open and degraded habitats, being an important natural enemy of agricultural lepidopterous pests (Triana and Ravelo, 2007). Amongst the material collected from organic agroecosystems in southeast Brazil, five Eiphosoma Cresson 1865 specimens were identified as a new species. Other species of Ichneumonidae has been studied with material collected in several Brazilian ecosystems (Onody and Penteado-Dias, 2006; Onody et al., 2009; Loffredo and Penteado-Dias, 2008 a,b). The terminology in this study follows Gauld (2000) and all specimens are deposited in the DCBU collection (Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UFSCar, São Carlos, SP, Brazil).