Philanthus schulthessi Maidl, 1924

Figs 15A–C, 16A, B, 17A–D

Philanthus schulthessi Maidl, 1924: 242, ♀.

Diagnosis. Body length 11–13.5 mm (female).

Greatly resembles female of P. minor, but differs from that species in having the body punctures conspicuously denser (Figs 15A–C, 16A, B, 17A–D); metapleuron densely pilose (inconspicuous in P. minor) (Fig. 16A); colour pattern of gaster (Fig. 16C, 17B); antenna whitish basally and pale reddish at the rest (Figs 15B, 17B) (basal segments yellowish and the rest of flagellum black in P. minor (Fig. 9C)); gastral terga with conspicuously denser punctures, interspaces smaller than puncture diameter, thus appearing dull (Figs 16C, 17B) (less dense, with larger interspaces and shiny in P. minor (Fig. 9A)).

Material examined: 1♀, Marsa Matruh, 15.ix.1957, Aly collector (ASUA) ; 1♀, Marsa Matruh, vii.1952, Dr. T. S. collector (ASUA) ; 1♀, Marsa Matruh, 20.viii.1955, Aly collector (ASUA) (all were mistakenly identified as P. minor); a photograph from the OÖLM : 1♀, Marsa Matruh, 22–29.viii.1954 , collector? (det. W.J. Pulawski, 1978).

Previous Egyptian records: Marsa Matruh (Dollfuss 2017; present study).

Extralimital distribution: Chad, Libya Mauritania, Sudan.

Remarks. In his Mauritanian paper, de Beaumont (1953) has mistakenly identified P. schulthessi as P. minor . However, because of some differences between the specimens examined by him and the true minor (the ocelloocular distance; the degree of emargination of pronotum; the dense punctures; and the colour of gastral T 1 and T 2) he treated it as a subspecies of P. minor . In 1956, comparing his Mauritanian specimens with schulthessi from Wadi Wour (an island near Khartoum, Sudan), he found them conspecific, and thus he corrected the Mauritanian minor subsp. of 1953 to be P. schulthessi .

The specimens examined from the ASUA collection were identified as P. minor, by comparing them with the photos of P. schulthessi received from OÖLM, they were found to be conspecific. Their characters also agree well with the Libyan specimen of de Beaumont’s P. schulthessi (1956:184) and to a large extent with figs 15, 16 (de Beaumont, 1956:184). All specimens under study as well as that photographed by OÖLM were collected from Marsa Matruh between May and September (1952–1957).