Description of two new species of Anacharitinae (Hymenoptera: Figitidae) from the Afrotropical Region N. Mata-Casanova 1 * , J. Selfa 2 & J. Pujade-Villar 1 1 Departament de Biologia Animal, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avenida Diagonal 645, 08028-Barcelona, Spain 2 Departament de Zoologia, Facultat de Ciències Biològiques, Universitat de València, Campus de Burjassot-Paterna, Dr Moliner 50, E-46100 Burjassot (València), Spain An revision of current knowledge on subfamily Anacharitinae for the Afrotropical Region is given. Two new species are described: Acanthaegilopsis hemicoriaceus Mata-Casanova & Pujade-Villar sp. n. and Xyalaspis subsaharica Mata-Casanova & Pujade-Villar sp. n. Diagnos- tic characters are illustrated and data about biology, distribution and morphological variabil- ity are discussed. Key words: Afrotropical Region, Anacharitinae, new species, taxonomy. INTRODUCTION Anacharitinae is a subfamily of Figitidae charac- terized by the presence of three main synapo- morphies (Ros-Farré et al. 2000): rounded and continuous pronotal plate, broadly overlapping mandibles and triangular-shaped head in frontal view (although it is more quadrangular-shaped in genus Proanacharis and Acanthaegilopsis and in some species of Xyalaspis). The subfamily currently includes nine described genera (Mata-Casanova & Pujade-Villar 2013): Acanthaegilips Ashmead, 1897; Acanthaegilopsis Pujade-Villar, 2013; Aegilips Haliday, 1835; Anacharis Dalman, 1823; Calofigites Kieffer, 1909; Hexacharis Kieffer, 1907; Proanacharis Kovalev, 1996; Solenofigites Díaz, 1979; and Xyalaspis Hartig, 1843. Although some species have been described as parasitoids of aphid- feeding larvae of Neuroptera (Ronquist 1999), the biology of most species remains unknown. The Anacharitinae genera can be roughly divided into those having a circumscutellar carina border- ing the scutellum and those whose circum- scutellar carina has evolved becoming a projecting scutellar spine (Restrepo-Ortiz & Pujade-Villar 2010). Xyalaspis and Acanthaegilopsis are included in the second group alongside Acanthaegilips. Acanthaegilips can be easily distinguished from the other two genera by the presence of an oblique groove in the mesopleuron and a much longer scutellar spine. Acanthaegilopsis and Xyalaspis are morphologically close, except for differences regarding the sculpture of the mesopleuron and the malar area: while Acanthaegilopsis has a coriaceous mesopleuron and no malar impres- sion, Xyalaspis has a smooth mesopleuron and a coriaceous malar sulcus (Mata-Casanova & Pujade-Villar 2013). The number of Anacharitinae known from the Afrotropical Region is low. The other Figitidae subfamilies Eucoilinae and Charipinae have an extensive record (Frontal-Cazalla et al. 2002; Paretas-Martínez et al. 2009; Ferrer-Suay et al. 2013) and the Aspicerinae genus Prosaspicera is well documented in this region (Ros-Farré & Pujade- Villar 2006) whereas the Anacharitinae had been represented only by one species of Aegilips for a long time. Suitable Neuroptera hosts for the anacharitines are also abundant (Mansell 1986; Hölzel & Ohm 2002), so it seems more likely that the cause of the scarce anacharitine register is the few studies done in the region rather than some biological reasons. Supporting this idea is the fact that recent works (Pujade-Villar 2012; Mata- Casanova & Pujade-Villar 2013) have notably aug- mented the number of Afrotropical anacharitines. In this work, two new species are added to the Afrotropical species diversity: Acanthaegilopsis hemicoriaceus Mata-Casanova & Pujade-Villar sp. n. and Xyalaspis subsaharica Mata-Casanova & Pujade-Villar sp. n., increasing the number of Anacharitinae from three to five and recording both genera from mainland Africa for the first time. Taxonomic and biogeographical consider- ations are discussed. African Entomology 22(3): 545–551 (2014) *Author for correspondence. E-mail: feofitotu@gmail.com