Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 86. (Budapest 1994)

Argaman, Q.: Generic synopsis of Myzinidae (Hymenoptera: Scolioidea)

The most tangled problem of Myzinidae, however, arises from the difficulty, and in some instances, the impossibility of accurate association of sexes. While fully winged males are collected on flowers, blossoms and honeydew, the females are frequently captured on the soil surface, where they search for hosts: darkling ground beetle larvae (Tenebrionidae) or white grubs (Scarabaeidae). Most of the earlier investigators described the sexes separately due to their accentuated sexual dimorphism. There were no attempts to find correlations. The main purpose of the present study was to delimit the genera and to facilitate the association of sexes in the future. In the majority of the cases I have achieved this task, but some genera remain represented only by males. Their corresponding females could not be reliably identified confidently, or these females, living in some cryptic biotopes, have not yet been collected at all. In some instances, the association is tentative, and although highly probable, may prove to be wrong. The male genitalia as a whole, share characteristics so slightly in the Palaearctic Region, that it may be barely useful for separation of the taxa on generic level. A considerable amount of new, taxonomically reliable features were discovered and utilized in the present key. Two new characters are used here for the first time and therefore require a proper terminology: tignar sulcus is the delicate furrow which ventrally borders the lateral pronotal lobe (when complete) from the collar down and, after a curve, up to the pretegular edge of pronotum; colpus is a deep, pocket-like invagination of the gradulus of the abdominal sterna or terga, with the tegument actually cut in two separate layers. Within the tribe Meriini, one may encounter some difficulties of species identification. This is due to the fact that some males share resemblance with another, not closely related ones. For instance, a lot of males with a spine extending downward the tignar sulcus, were collected together with the females of Pseudomeria graeca SAUNDERS, at the same time and place: Trajan Valley Nature Reserve, Dobrudja, Romania, in June 1978, by the author and his wife. Although a mating pair was not captured, their conspecifity is highly probable. The second kind of males, with the pronotal spine not nearly reaching the level of tignar sulcus ventrally, were sporadically collected in Austria, Greece, Romania, Russia and Switzerland. This male, already known as Meria genicidata BRULLÉ, differs in no other essential feature except the pronotal spine, from the presumed male of Pseudomeria and easily confused with it. Actually, the female of geniculata is sanguinicollis MORAWITZ, 1899, with which it was collected together at once in Sarepta, Russia. In the present study, a key to genera of Myzinidae is presented (Part I). Only two genera, Austromyzinum and Cleftomyzinum are omitted because of their scarcity in collections, and because they were accurately described by BROWN (1985). For the sake of brevity, the new genera are only concisely described in the key. All the new names proposed are arbitrary combinations of letters, gender feminine. Part LI deals with five species. Three are described as new. For two more species of FISCHER DE WALDHEIM, whose types are considered to be lost, neotypes are designated and they are redescribed from the material deposited in the Department of Zoology of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest. KEY TO GENERA OF MYZINIDAE 1 (18) Abdominal petiole constituted from both tergum and sternum (Figs 2, 5); first lateroterga reach the point of abdominal articulation. Hypostoma broadly intersect occipital carina medio-ventrally. Male acetabular carina separated from disc of mesosternum by a distance comparable to width of fore coxa. Both sexes macropterous. Diurnal forms. Parasitic on larvae of Scarabaeidae. New World. Subfamily Myzininae. 2 (3) Male fore coxa ending in a triangularly acute and densely pubescent spine (Fig. 1). Female terga 2-4 with gradulus (Fig. 2), viz. sliding surface delimited by an acute ridge from tergal disc. - Neotropic Region. Type-species: Myzine flavopicta SMITH, 1855 Cocovasna gen. n.