The genus Alfonsiella Waterston (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea, Agaonidae)

This paper is a tribute to Prof. Dr. L. D. Brongersma, in remembrance of the years I served as his deputy in the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie. The genus Alfonsiella was described by Waterston (1920) for A. fimbriata, a series of females of which were collected at Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika. In 1959, Joseph recorded females of A. fimbriata from Mt. Nimba, Guinea, and from the same locality he described A. longiscapa. Wiebes (1969) recorded A. fimbriata from Bingerville, Ivory Coast. More female specimens of both West African forms were caught at light by Dr. J. T. Medler at Ile-Ife, Nigeria; females and males of A. longiscapa were reared by him from the receptacles of Ficus cf. leprieuri. Dr. D. S. Hill, when at Makerere University, Uganda, obtained males and females of Alfonsiella from three species of figs, viz., Ficus dekdeknena, F. natalensis, and Ficus spec. It is peculiar that several samples contained a species of Elisabethiella Grandi next to that of Alfonsiella. This simultaneous occurrence of two species of Agaonidae in one fig is well worth of further investigation. It is suggestive of the sort of relation described by Galil & Eisikowitch (1969) for Ceratosolen arabicus and C. galili in Ficus sycomorus. There is a similar case with Ficus capensis, in the receptacles of which Ceratosolen capensis an'd C. flabellatus occasionally are found together. Now that several of these instances have become known from Africa, the few from the Indo-Malayan region (see Wiebes, 1966) may warrant an explanation different from that suggested when they were found. Some instances of American Agaonidae reported from one species of fig were mentioned by Ramirez (1970): only that of Blastophaga mariae and B. carlosi in Ficus tuerckheimi would seem to be genuine, and may be corresponding with rela-