Chrysidids from Spain, July 2014

[anillus]

Ciao Alex,

i miei più sinceri complimenti per le belle specie postate e le superbe immagini

[Alex]

1. Philoctetes horvathi Mocsary. Check the specimen with Linsenmaier keys, but I don't see many other options.
2. Cleptes aerosus Förster, female, right!
3. Chrysis varidens Abeille, female right!
4. Hedychridium vachali Mercet, right!
The colouration is unique! In North Africa (Morocco) there's an other subspecies with simple colour and Linsenmaier named it: decoloratum.

Thanks Paolo! Great with the confirmations and ID's! And dont worry in the least about not replying quickly - I'm not in a hurry. Still have lots of material to be prepped and imaged, although most of the "spectacular" ones are done, I couldnt resist finding out what species they belonged to.

Thanks Andrea, they're so pretty I cant resist spending some time getting the quality as high as I can!

/Alex

[Alex]

Another set of specimens, the first one should be correctly ID'd, Chrysis andradei, Linsenmaier 1959, while the Philoctetes I'm much more unsure about. I get it to P. micans, Klug 1835 in Linsenmaier 1959, if I start keying in the Philoctetes key, but I'm not sure if thats the correct subgenus since his interpretation of the taxon is different to the "modern" one following Kimsey & Bohart 1991.

Large

Large

https://www.flickr.com/photos/69669232@N06/15803930981/sizes/k/

Large

/Alex

[Alex]

Hope you've had a good new year so far! My first post of the year is here
And I'm back into stacking again, this time a small Hedychridium sp. in the monochronum-group (I think? Is it even that species?), I accidentally managed to break off not one but both forewings during preparation, its so fragile due to its miniscule size.

Large

Might take a shot of the head in frontal view too, although I havent actually read up on how to separate the species in the group, so other characters might be more usefull to image?

/Alex

[Alex]

Back again at long last!

I've ID'd most of my material from Spain, but some still give me trouble so I decided to image them and ask:

I assume its an succincta-group species, the face and colours fit, but the T3 teeth look a bit to "normal" ie middle teeth not far away from lateral ones (but then it's male) and the S2 black spots quite small. Cant seem to find something in Linsenmaier 1959 etc that really fits, Chrysis inclinata Lins. 1959, seems somewhat close, described:

6½-7 mm. Wie pyrophana ♂ aber Gen (Fig. 357) deutlich verschieden,
Pkt überall ziemlich gleich dicht, auf Abd sehr viel gröber als bei
pyrophana, Tergit 1 an der Basis mit drei viel deutlicheren Impressionen,
golden, nur ganz vorn an der Basis zum Teil mehr oder weniger grün¬
lich. K und Th bei der Type blau, der Paratype grün. Anal-Rand
Fig. 515.

The genital capsule is quite close (Lins. 1959: fig. 357), but there's no mention of the very heavy bristles present in my specimen. The puncation And the T3 teeth seem more pronounced than fig. 515 (ditto), with far larger pits. Its range is apparently eastern, the from the Balkans and eastwards. Is this a western "sister species" described in a later publication, very variable, or something completely different?

Dorsal habitus (size ca 5 mm)

Metasoma

head lateral showing gena and mandible width

head, front

Sternite 8 and genital capsule

Thanks in advance!
/Alex

[Euchroeus]

Hi Alex,

welcome back with your super pictures!

Your specimen is the male of a common Chrysis grohmanni
Sorry for your expectations

C. inclinata is a very very rare E-MED species, closely related to similar species distributed in Central Asia.

I see that I did not replay to your previous post: that specimen is H. monochroum.

Ciao!!!
Paolo

[Alex]

Thank you! I'm just happy to get an ID - the succincta-group (except C. pyrophana & C. peninsularis) is driving me crazy... Helps a lot to have some confirmed specimens to compare with.

I should post a species list some time, now that the majority is ID'd

/Alex

Edit: thanks for the H. monochroum confirmation, I keyed the Philoctetes male above to P. micans, it seems to fit well.

[Alex]

Next up, something I feel rather confident in my ID, it should be Chrysis merceti (Trautmann, 1926) an Iberian endemic from what I can gather. Sadly the camera did not pick up the colours very well, the golden red
parts of the meso and metasoma are in real life deep magenta, contrasting sharply against the greens.

The specimens right fore leg is missing (see 2nd image), so the left one has been copied and transposed for the sake of symmetry in this dorsal habitus.

/Alex

[Euchroeus]

Hi Alex!

Super

yes, ID correct, it's quite easy to identify this beauty!

Cheers
Paolo

[Paul]

Hi Alex,
Thanks for presenting and sharing those "Character reference"-pictures of all these beauty specimen.
In addition to Paulo's explainations I learn a lot!
All the best Paul