Epidermal cells measurements on Conostigmus longulus Dessart.

This dataset is a suporting information for the manuscript: Mikó et al. (in press) Malagasy Conostigmus (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea) and the secret of scutes.

Environmental factors impact development and determine final adult body size by altering different cellular processes. Temperature and oxygen level usually impact cell size, while nutrition mostly regulates cell division.

Conostigmus species are relatively large ceraphronoids (0.8--2.2 mm) making it feasible to observe and examine, elements of the aforementioned leather like sculpture. Scutes likely have a one to one correspondence to epidermal cells in arthropods and thus should provide information about the cellular basis of body size polyphenism.

For the morphometric analysis on scute patterns, extended focal images of the frons and the mesocutellar-axillar complex of 14 Conostigmus longulus Dessart 1997 specimens were taken using an Olympus BX43 compound microscope equipped with an Olympus DP73 digital camera on 200× magnification. Extended focal images were generated using the online ``extended focal imaging'' (efi) tool of an Olympus CellsensTM software.

Measurements were taken using the same software. First, a 9636 µm rectangular area was assigned on the extended focal images for recording scute pattern. The lateral vertices of the medially-positioned rectangle were adjacent with the scutoscutellar sulcus on the mesonotum, while the rectangle was positioned medially on the frons with equal distance from the anterior ocellus and the intertorular carina. Scutes overlapping this area (including scutes adjacent to the margin of the rectangle) were counted and the longest diameter of each scute was measured. Measurements (were taken on the images while constantly checking their accuracy on live view at 200–500× magnification. Body length largely depends on the relative orientations of the tagmata. The head of most species is flattened dorsoventrally and attached at its posterior end to the thorax. We used the IOS (interorbital distance (IOS, \url{http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/HAO_0000432}) to infer body size in our statistical analysis.