Brachygaster minutus (Olivier, 1791)

Fig 1

MATERIAL EXAMINED. Republic of Belarus: Gomelskaya oblast: W of Gomel, 52°24'36" N, 30°53'48" E, h= 132 m, clearing in a mixed forest, 13.VII 2019, 1♀, leg. A.M. Ostrovsky. The examined specimen is housed at the author's collection.

DIAGNOSIS. Diagnostic features of this specimen are briefly reported below: body densely foveolate; forewing without 1st marginal cell and with 3 closed cells (costal, basal and subbasal), 4 RS absent and r-m present as spectral veins in fore wing; apical tooth of tarsal claw prominent.

DISTRIBUTION. Europe (including the European part of Russia), North Africa, Abkhazia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Iran (Crosskey, 1951; Deans & Huben, 2003; Deans, 2005, 2008; Žikić et al., 2016; Lotfalizadeh et al., 2017; Belokobylskij, 2019; Deans et al., 2023).

REMARKS. Brachygaster minutus is a parasitoid of oothecae of Blatta orientalis Linnaeus, 1758 and Blattella germanica (Linnaeus, 1767), as well as field-dwelling cockroaches belonging to the genus Ectobius Stephens, 1835. The species is solitary in habit. Adults seek out and oviposit in the concealed egg-cases of cockroach. The single larva feed on the cockroach eggs, pupate and overwintering inside the ootheca as a final instar. The emergence of the adult the following summer is perfectly synchronized with the occurrence in the field of the particular cockroach species (Brown, 1973; Kozlov, 1988; Belokobylskij, 2019).