O. Merkl szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 67. (Budapest, 2006)

Q. petraea ssp. iberica. In addition the western Caucasus shares many characteristics with the Euxine (= pontic) region of northern Turkey, including the two oak species Q. pontica and Q. hartwissiana. In contrast to these two areas, the Zagros mountains stretching from northern Iraq (Kurdistan) in a southwesterly direction through western Iran towards Shiraz are much drier. Here the oak forests are composed of more drought-tolerant species in the section Cerris, including Q. ithaburensis subsp. macrolepis (only in Iraq), Q. libani and Q. brantii and one member of section Quercus s. str, Q. infectoria ssp. veneris. Three of these species are present in the northern third, but only Q. brantii is found in the park-like forest stretching to the southern end of the mountain range. The forests stretch up to about 2000 m in altitude and used to form large areas of continuous cover. Now below about 500 m there is treeless steppe or agricultural land, and the forests at higher altitude are often badly degraded as a consequence of continuous over-grazing and logging. Turkey represents a major centre of diversity of oak cynipids, and a number of new species have recently been described from Turkey and Iran (MELIKA et al. 2004, MELIKA & STONE 2001). A number of widespread oak gallwasps show their greatest genetic diversity in the eastern Mediterranean, suggesting that the Iran-Turanian region may have acted as a major centre of speciation in this group in the past (estimates based on DNA sequence divergence suggest that such a radiation took place at least several million years ago) (ROKAS, ATKINSON et al. 2003, STONE et al. 2001). It remains unclear, however, how much Iranian forests lie within the true centre of this diversity, or whether they represent an eastern limit to the distributions of taxa otherwise found further west. The descriptions provided here represent the continuation of surveys to establish the oak gall fauna of Iran, and suggest that at least some oak gallwasps are endemic to this region. In this paper we describe three new species, Andricus stonei sp. n., asexual form, Dryocosmus tavakolii sp. n. and Dryocosmus mikoi sp. n., sexual forms, and give some data on the distribution and biology of these species. A detailed description and diagnosis to Andricus moreae (GRAEFFE, 1905), a species for a long time known from the literature as such with uncertain status, is given too. We follow the current terminology of morphological structures (GIBSON 1985, RONQUIST & NORDLANDER 1989, MENKE 1993, FERGUSSON 1995). Abbreviations for forewing venation follow RONQUIST & NORDLANDER (1989). Measurements and abbreviations used here include: F1-F12, 1st and subsequent flagellomcres; POD (post-ocellar distance) is the distance between the inner margins of the posterior ocelli; OOD (ocellar-ocular distance) is the distance from the outer edge of a posterior ocellus to the inner margin of the compound eye; LOD, the distance between lateral and frontal ocellus. Width of radial cell measured along vein 2r. Pictures of some structures of adult wasps were taken with a digital camera, followed by processing in Adobe Photoshop 6.0. Line drawings were then prepared from hard copy printouts.