Genus Allophrys Förster, 1869

Allophrys is a moderately large tersilochine genus comprising 22 described and many undescribed species predominantly in the tropical regions through the world. Seven species of Allophrys are known from Costa Rica (Khalaim & Broad 2012), including A. divaricata Horstmann occurring from southeastern U.S.A. to northern Argentina (Horstmann 2010); one species occurs in West Indies; nine species were described from Afrotropical region (Khalaim 2013a, 2013b); and three species, including two new taxa and one morphospecies, were recently discovered from Japan (Khalaim 2017). The genus is also known from Australia (Gauld 1984), but no species have been described from this country.

Three species of Allophrys were known from the Oriental region till now: A. bruneiensis Khalaim from Brunei, A. occipitata Khalaim from Vietnam and East India (Khalaim 2011) and A. cantonensis Reshchikov & Yue from South China (Yue et al. 2017). One more species originally described in this genus, A. falcatus Reshchikov from Philippines, actually belongs to the family Braconidae (Khalaim & Belokobylskij 2017). The genus Allophrys has also been reported from Sabah Province of Malaysia (Horstmann et al. 2005). Four species of Allophrys are found to occur in Vietnam: A. occipitata and three undescribed taxa.

Allophrys cantonensis was described on the basis of a single male, its original description (Yue et al. 2017: 190) is brief and insufficient, therefore identification of this species is problematic until its female is discovered and described. According to the original description and illustrations, A. cantonensis is characterized by distinctly punctate mesopleuron, well developed and extending across anterior 0.7 of mesopleuron foveate groove, interstitial second recurrent vein (2 m-cu), propodeum with narrow and short basal area which is 0.4× as long as apical area (all these characters are usually shared by males and females). Thus, A. cantonensis is probably most similar to the Vietnamese A. daklaka and differs from the latter by its interstitial second recurrent vein (postfurcal in A. daklaka). According to the original description, A. cantonensis possesses fore wing “without brachial cell” but in the photograph (Yue et al. 2017: Fig. 9) this cell is present, with second abscissa of postnervulus long and distinct, clearly enclosing the brachial cell posteriorly.

Very little is known about host preferences of species in this genus. In the Neotropical region, one species of Allophrys was reared from an unidentified sap beetle (Nitidulidae) in fallen guava fruits (Psidium guajava L., Myrtaceae) (Horstmann 2010). Nothing is known about the biology of Vietnamese species.