Cladistic assessment and redescription of Galodoxa torquata Nagy (Hymenoptera, Bethylidae), a striking species with swallow tailed metasomal sternite

Females of Galodoxa torquata Nagy, 1974, from the Oriental region, are promptly recognized by the deeply incised and bifurcate posterior margin of the fourth metasomal sternite. Because of this unusual character Nagy (1974) established a subfamily to accommodate it, but a superficial examination indicates that this species might be better placed in the tribe Sclerodermini. In order to test the hypothesis, it is redescribed, illustrated, and cladistically compared with data in literature of representative species of almost all genera of Sclerodermini and three outgroup species. A total of 72 characters extracted from literature are evaluated. The analyses were executed with equally weighted parsimony and implied weighting. Both unweighted and implied weighting results support the placement of Galodoxa into the tribe Sclerodermini. The monotypic subfamily Galodoxinae is therefore treated as new synonym of the subfamily Epyrinae and the genus Galodoxa Nagy, 1974 is transferred to the tribe Sclerodermini.