Urocerus augur (Klug, 1803)

Liston, Andrew D., Knight, Guy T., Sheppard, David A., Broad, Gavin R. & Livermore, Laurence, 2014, Checklist of British and Irish Hymenoptera - Sawflies, ' Symphyta', Biodiversity Data Journal 2, pp. 1168-1168 : 1168

Urocerus augur (Klug, 1803)

Sirex augur Klug, 1803

Sirex bimaculata (Donovan, 1808, Sirex )

Sirex cedrorum (Smith, 1860, Sirex )

Urocerus fantoma (Fabricius, 1781)

Distribution

England, Scotland, Ireland

Notes

Established in Ireland. Urocerus augur , Urocerus fantoma and Urocerus tardigradus have at times been recorded as introductions to the British Isles, but only Urocerus augur is regarded as established ( O'Connor et al. 1997). All were treated as valid species by Smith (1978), although Urocerus tardigradus had for a long time been placed as a synonym of Urocerus fantoma . Benson 1958 (ii, supplement to section a) added Urocerus tardigradus to the British list with " Urocerus fantoma Fabricius auctt. nec Fabricius" as its synonym and separated this in a key from " Urocerus fantoma fantoma (= Urocerus augur augur Klug)". The reasons for this treatment are not clear. No type specimens are known to exist for either Urocerus fantoma or Urocerus tardigradus , but Fabricius (1781) in his short original description of Sirex fantoma describes the legs as yellow, whereas Urocerus augur has extensively black tibiae. European specimens previously identified as Urocerus tardigradus have so far all proved to belong to Urocerus fantoma (A. Taeger, pers. comm.). We revert here to treating Urocerus tardigradus as a synonym of Urocerus fantoma .