Eumenes (Eumenes) tripunctatus (Christ, 1791)

Figures 24-26

Material examined.

Russia: Crimea, Arabat Spit, Kamenskoye-Solyanoye, 45°18.20'N, 35°27.60'E, 23.VII.2017, (1 ♂), leg. AF [CAFK]; ibid., reared from nest collected 28.VI.2020, 13-20.VII.2020, (1 ♀), leg. AF [CAFK]. Tyva Rep., Tes-Khemskiy Distr., S Tannu-Ola Ridge, 45 km SW Samagaltay, S end of Khol' -Yezhu Riv., sandy Nanophyton semi-desert, 20.VII.1960, (1 ♀, 1 ♂), leg. J. Stebaev [FSCV]; Tes-Khemskiy Distr., 10 km E Khol’ -Oozhu, 1600 m, 15-16.VII.1989, (1 ♀), leg. D.V. Logunov [FSCV] . Afghanistan: Ghazni Prov., SW Moqor, 10-20.IX.1972, (1 ♀), leg. Kabakov [FSCV] .

Distribution.

Russia: European part (East, South, North Caucasus, Crimea), Urals, Eastern Siberia (Tyva Rep.). - Eastern Europe, Iran, *Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China.

Remarks.

Amolin and Artokhin (2014) stated that this species was common in Tyva Republic (Tannu-Ola) but did not report any examined specimens; that record was then disregarded by Antropov and Fateryga (2017), who did not list Tyva Republic in the distribution of E. tripunctatus . The species is well known to be confined to sandy habitats (Amolin and Artokhin 2014), that is evident also for both the Crimea (Fig. 24) and Tyva Republic. Such a habitat preference leads to an idea that sand may be used by E. tripunctatus for nest construction. A nest of this species, found for the first time, however, was made of usual clayey soil without any evidences of the sand use (Fig. 26). The nest, found attached to a Crambe maritima L. twig on 28.VII.2020 in the Crimea, was open but abandoned by the mother wasp; there was a fifth-instar larva inside. The next day it began spinning a cocoon from which the adult wasp emerged in July of the same year, indicating the presence of the second generation.