About the key



     This key provides an interactive identification tool designed to identify any Leucospis specimen to the species group level. The Lucid key recognizes 20 taxa of Leucospis, 16 species groups and 4 species sola (Darling and Cardinal 2005). Keys to the species are available in Boucek (1974).

How to use the key

     If you are unfamiliar with Lucid keys, please see the Lucid Player help, also accessible via the main Player toolbar or refer to the Lucidcentral.org website.

Construction of key

     The key was originally prepared in Lucid Builder (ver. 2.3) database of species, species groups and characters using Boucek (1974) as the starting point. Table 1 (Darling and Cardinal 2005) provides a current summary of the number of species in each species group or species sola and their geographic distributions. The species coded in each species group are highlighted in red on the species group notes pages. Then upgraded to Lucid Builder version 3, to leverage the new JavaScript based Lucid Player.

     The only modification from Boucek (1974) involves the pediculata species-group, which is partitioned into the pediculata species-group (sensu stricto) and the micrura species-group. For each of the 70 species available for study, a total of 36 morphological characters were coded along with information on geographic distribution. A composite species group taxon was then coded using all of the character states of the included species.

     The photographs used in the key were taken with a Nikon Coolpix digital camera mounted to a dissecting microscope. The drawings were modified from Boucek (1974) and adjusted and annotated using Adobe Photoshop to highlight required structures.

     The notes pages provide information on the composition of each species group, its geographical distribution and recorded hosts for each species. Distributional data are largely from Boucek 1974, with some modifications to reflect recent political changes. A diagnosis and remarks section, slightly modified from Darling and Cardinal (2005), is also provided. There is also a photo gallery of the included species. The notes pages and images can be accessed any time by selecting the circle associated with the taxon names.

Errors

Please report any errors, omissions or suggestions for this key to [email protected]

Authorship

Key prepared at the Royal Ontario Museum/University of Toronto, and York University, Ontario, Canada and supported by NSERC Discovery Grants to Chris Darling and Laurence Packer.

Sophie Cardinal
Department of Entomology
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
14850

D. Christopher Darling
Department of Natural History
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5S 2C6

and

Department of Zoology
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario Canada
M5S 1A1

Lucid Software is developed and maintained by Identic Pty Ltd, Stafford Heights 4053 Queensland Australia.