''Bassettia'' is a genus of
gall wasp
Gall wasps, also incorrectly called gallflies, are hymenopterans of the family Cynipidae in the wasp superfamily Cynipoidea. Their common name comes from the galls they induce on plants for larval development. About 1,300 species of this gener ...
s found in North America.
Taxonomic history
This genus was
circumscribed by
William Harris Ashmead
William Harris Ashmead was an American entomologist born on 19 September 1855 at Philadelphia. He died 17 October 1908 at Washington D.C.
After his studies in Philadelphia, Ashmead worked for the publisher J. B. Lippincott & Co. Later, he settl ...
in 1887. Ashmead named the genus after "Mr.
H. F. Bassett, of Waterbury, Conn., who has done so much towards advancing our knowledge of these intricate Hymenopters". Two species were included in the genus's initial circumscription: ''B. floridana'',
described in the same work, and ''
B. tenuicornis''.
Bassett had described the latter species in 1881, placing it in the genus ''
Cynips
''Cynips'' is a genus of gall wasps in the tribe Cynipini, the oak gall wasps. One of the best known is the common oak gall wasp (''Cynips quercusfolii''), which induces characteristic spherical galls about two centimeters wide on the undersides ...
''.
Ashmead later designated ''B. floridana'' as the genus's
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...
.
Species
A 2007 revision of the genus by G. Melika and W. G. Abrahamson recognizes the following eight species in this genus:
* ''
Bassettia archboldi'' — Florida
* ''
Bassettia floridana'' — Connecticut, Florida
* ''
Bassettia gemmae'' — Missouri, Illinois, District of Columbia
* ''
Bassettia ligni'' — California, Oregon
* ''
Bassettia pallida'' — Georgia, Florida
* ''
Bassettia tenuana'' — New Mexico
* ''
Bassettia virginiana'' — Virginia
* ''
Bassettia weldi'' — Arizona
Subsequent changes include the addition of:
* ''
Bassettia caulicola'' — Panama
Former species
Melika and Abrahamson transferred or restored these species from ''Bassettia'' to ''
Callirhytis'' in 2002.
They had been included in Weld's 1951 taxonomy of ''Bassettia''.
* ''
Callirhytis aquaticae''
* ''
Callirhytis ceropteroides''
* ''
Callirhytis herberti''
* ''
Callirhytis quercuscatesbaei''
References
Further reading
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Cynipidae
Hymenoptera genera
Taxa named by William Harris Ashmead
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