Chrysis inaequalis Dahlbom, 1845

Rosa, Paolo & Vardal, Hege, 2015, An annotated catalogue of the types of Chrysididae (Hymenoptera) at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, with brief historical notes, ZooKeys 495, pp. 79-132 : 118-120

Chrysis inaequalis Dahlbom, 1845 Plate 34

Chrysis inaequalis : Dahlbom 1845: 8.

Type locality.

Turkey: " Bosfor ".

Neotype

(here designated) ♂: [ Helvetia ] [Roveredo 28.8.46] [♂ Chrysis L. inaequalis D. det. Lins.] [NML_ENT GBIF_Chr 00038702] deposited at NMLS.

Remarks.

Chrysis inaequalis is one of the most common species in Europe. It was described from Turkey (Bosfor), but the type is lost. In the general collection we could only find two females of Chrysis inaequalis collected at Rhodes by Hedenborg. According to Linsenmaier the “typical” Chrysis inaequalis is present only in central-, southern Europe and in northern Africa; in the rest of the distributional range, from Greece to central Asia, the subspecies Chrysis inaequalis sapphirina Semenov-Tian-Shanskij, 1912 is present. Chrysis sapphirina is the eastern form with green-coloured males and both sexes coarsely punctuated. Linsenmaier (1959) cited Chrysis inaequalis s. str. in North China and Manchuria, but later, in his collection, he identifed all the eastern specimens as Chrysis inaequalis ssp. sapphirina . Linsenmaier (1959) did not notice that the typical locality of Chrysis inaequalis correspond with the distribution given for Chrysis inaequalis ssp. sapphirina sensu auctorum .

For this reason a neotype designation of Chrysis inaequalis is needed. We could not find any other specimen from Bosphor (Istanbul and adjacent areas), but in Linsenmaier’s collection we found many specimens collected in western Turkey, both on the European and the Asiatic side. The closest localities are Edirne (on the European side) and Ayvalik (on the Asiatic side). Even if it is not required for a neotype designation, Ayvalik is a seaside town on the northwestern Aegean coast of Turkey, it is possible that Hedenborg visited this town moving from Rhodes or Egypt to Istanbul. In fact Hedenborg was the medical doctor of the Swedish Embassy at Istanbul, and not only a famous naturalist who published different papers on his journeys in Rhodes and Egypt.

However, since the name Chrysis inaequalis is in prevailing use for the identification of the western European specimens for the last 100 years, we prefer to designate a neotype based on one specimen collected in central Europe, rather than on a specimen collected nearby the typical locality. If we designate a neotype on an eastern Mediterranean species, the name Chrysis sapphirina would fall in synonymy with Chrysis inaequalis and the western subspecies would be named: Chrysis inaequalis ssp. taeniophrys Förster, 1853, which is the first available name. Moreover, if future examinations made with the help of molecular techniques will demonstrate that western and the eastern subspecies (sensu Linsenmaier) are separated and valid species, the valid name for Chrysis inaequalis in Europe would become Chrysis taeniophrys Förster, a name never used after the description given by Förster. In addition, the type of Chrysis taeniophrys Förster is lost, and we could not check that it is truly the first available name for the western form of Chrysis inaequalis . By designating a western European specimen, we keep the stability of name use. Therefore, the male specimen collected in Swtizerland at Roveredo on the 28th of August 1948 by Linsenmaier (NML_ENT GBIF_Chr 00038702) is selected, housed in the Linsenmaier collection at the NMLS.

Current status.

Chrysis inaequalis Dahlbom, 1845.