Ábrahám Levente (szerk.): Válogatott tanulmányok XII. - Natura Somogyiensis 27. (Kaposvár, 2015)
Samin H. - Bagriacik N.: A faunistic study on digger wasps (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae, Sphecidae) from Iran
Natura Somogyiensis 27 69-74 Kaposvár, 2015 A faunistic study on digger wasps (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae, Sphecidae) of Iran Najmeh Samin1 & Nil Bagriacik2 •Young Researchers and Elite Club, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran email: n_samin63@yahoo.com 2Nigde University, Faculty of Science and Art, Department of Biology, 51100 Nigde, Turkey; email: bagriacik@hotmail.com Samin, N. & Bagriacik, N.: A faunistic study on digger wasps (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae, Sphecidae) of Iran. Abstract: The present paper deals with the fauna of digger wasps of the families Crabronidae and Sphecidae from various regions of Iran. Totally 16 species of 13 genera (Crabronidae: 11 species of 9 genera and Sphecidae: 5 species of 4 genera) were collected and identified Keywords: Hymenoptera, Crabronidae, Sphecidae, digger wasp, fauna, Iran Introduction Hymenoptera are one of the four large orders of insects, with over 100.000 described species (Goulet & Huber 1993). Sphecidae sensu lato comprise 318 genera and almost 10.000 described species worldwide. This group is divided into four families: Heterogynaeidae, Ampulicidae, Sphecidae, and Crabronidae (Yildirim 2011, Pulawski 2015). Sphecid wasps has worldwide distribution, occupying mainly arid and semi arid areas (Schmid-Egger 2011). They are predators or ectoparasitoids of various insects, collembolans, and spiders. They are able to hunt insect of nearly all orders from mayflies to hymenopterans; the most commons are Diptera, Orthoptera, Heteroptera, Blattodea, Homoptera, Lepidoptera (catterpilars and adults), Coleoptera, and Hymenoptera. Some species are generalists preying any living or dead insects, others are extreme specialists to one kind of prey (Bohart & Menke 1976, Bogusch et al. 2007). The Iranian digger wasps were studied by de Beaumont 1957, 1970, Esmaili & Rastegar 1974, Ebrahimi 1993a,b, 2000a,b, 2005, 2008, Ebrahimi et al. 1995, Ghazisoltanzadeh et al. 2006, Fallahzadeh et al. 2006, 2009, Sakenin et al. 2010, 2011, Samin et al. 2015.
