On some new cephaline gregarines

Abstract

The gregarine described below has been found abundantly in the alimentary canal of many specimens of the carpenter bee, Xylocopa aestuans (Linn.), and is the first to be described from any Hymenopteran host. Keilin (1918), in describing Leidyana tinei in a Lepidopterous larva, remarked that no gregarines had been found till then in the two large orders of holometabolic insects: Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. He further observed as follows: "The fact that gregarines have not been previously recorded in these two orders cannot be considered as due to lack of observation, since large numbers of these insects have been dissected for many different purposes. Possibly we can account for the infrequency of their occurrence because of the habits of the larvae of Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. These are often parasites in other Arthropods (Hymenoptera) or they are gallicolous (Hymenoptera) or phytophagous (Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera) or they live in nests and cells (Hymenoptera)." We have examined about 200 specimens of Xylocopa and found them practically always infected.