First report of Idiomacromerus balasi (Hym.: Torymidae), parasitoids of a cecidomyiid gall midge in Iran (Short report)

During study of medicinal plant pests in Kaleibar, north of East-Azarbaijan province in the northwest of Iran, four parasitoids specimens of  gall midge species (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) were collected on Yellow Chamomile, Anthemis tinctoria L. (Asteraceae). Rearing was made in the entomological laboratory (24°C and 65% humidity). The emerged wasps were preserved in ethanol 75% and then mounted on point carts for identification. The specimens were identified as Idiomacromerus balasi (Szelenyi, 1957) (Hym.: Torymidae) by the second author which, according to literature, has never been recorded from Iran. Specimens deposited in insect collection of Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center of East-Azarbaijan Province. The genus Idiomacromerus Crawford has 42 species world widely (3) that most of them were distributed in the Palaearctic region (1, 2). These wasps are mostly parasitoid of phytophagous eurytomids and gall wasps of the family Cynipidae but I. balasi was reported as larval parasitoid of four gall midges (Dipetra: Cecidomyiidae) on Artemisia sp. (Asteraceae) (2). This species belong to the subfamily Toryminae and tribe Microdontomerini and has been reported from Europe (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and former Yugoslavia) and Jordan (3). This species has four ring-like antennal segments, hind femur without distinct teeth, head and thorax shiny, abdomen higher than broad, ovipositor longer than gaster.