Euchroeus limbatus - Spain

[Jose Ignacio]

Hello,
I found this one near Madrid on Thapsia villosa flowers (8, June, 2012).
I arrive with Fauna Ibérica (Mingo) at Brugmoia limbata male and it seems easy !!
but different authors, different names...

Thank you

[Euchroeus]

Fantastic!!!

Fantastic species and pictures!
I was very lucky the past year and I could collect some couples, but I had not time for pictures (I was collecting material, also for molecular analysis).

The question concerning the name is the easy to solve:
The generic name is Euchroeus as you wrote.
Kimsey & Bohart (1990) and later Mingo (1994) used the generic name Brugmoia instead of Euchroues. Kimsey found that in Fabricius' collection the presumed type of purpurata was iris Christ. Her diagnosis on the type material was wrong and few years later the Commission of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature stated that the generic name Euchroeus was to be conserved and a neotype of Chrysis purpurata was designated by Pavesi & Strumia.
Consequently the correct generic name is Euchroeus.

About the specific and subspecific name:
E. limbatus from Spain is considered as a separate subspecies by different authors (i.e. Linsenmaier and Trautmann): E. limbatus ssp. dusmeti Trautmann.
E. limbatus limbatus is present only in the Middle East to central Asia. Of course some differences exist between the 2 separated populations, but only a molecular analysis will say more about this 2 taxa.

Cheers
Paolo

[Jose Ignacio]

Many thanks for the explanation Paolo!

Best Regards
Jose Ignacio