Chrysis zonata, C. pyrrhina and C. serena

[Euchroeus]

An interesting case of synonymies is related to the names Chrysis pyrrhina Dahlbom, 1845, Chrysis serena Radoskowski, 1891 and Chrysis zonata Dahlbom, 1854. The case is discussed in:

Rosa P. (2018)
Chrysis serena Radoszkowski, 1891, a new synonym of Ch. zonata Dahlbom, 1854 (Hymenoptera, Chrysididae).
ZOOSYSTEMATICA ROSSICA, 27(1): 169–176

available here:
https://www.zin.ru/journals/zsr/publication.asp?id=1299

The species known as Chrysis pyrrhina Dahlbom, 1845 has primarily a ponto-mediterranean distribution, and it is relatively common from western Mediterranean countries to Western Asia, across Caucasus, Anatolia, and Middle East. Additionally, a specimen from China (Heilongjiang) was found in Linsenmaier’s collection
(Linsenmaier, 1968; Rosa et al., 2014).For a long time and with few exceptions, Ch. pyrrhina has been considered as variation, subspecies or even synonym of Ch. viridula Linnaeus, 1761, Ch. bidentata Linnaeus, 1767, Ch. integra Fabricius, 1787 or Ch. cylindrica Eversmann, 1858, until Linsenmaier (1959) recognized its specific rank within the Ch. viridula group in a modern sense.
Recently, Rosa & Vårdal (2015) discovered that the type of Ch. pyrrhina, housed at the Stockholm Museum, did not match Linsenmaier’s (1959) interpretation; Ch. serena Radoszkowski, 1891 was found to be the first available name. The type of Ch. serena was checked in the Radoszkowski collection at the Invertebrate collections of the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals in Krakow (Rosa et al., 2015).
Chrysis serena was considered by Linsenmaier (1968) as the eastern subspecies of Ch. pyrrhina, with coarser and denser punctation on metasoma and greener colour. It is well known that in several West-Palaearctic chrysidid species, from western to eastern countries, the punctuation becomes coarser, and coloration tends to become greener, up to completely green individuals (Linsenmaier, 1968). Both these variations are generally clinal, and hardly represent a ground for subspecies separation. From further studies,
Ch. serena proved in turn a synonym of Ch. zonata Dahlbom, 1854, as discussed in the article.