Euura proxima (Serville, 1823)

Liston, Andrew D., Heibo, Erik, Prous, Marko, Vårdal, Hege, Nyman, Tommi & Vikberg, Veli, 2017, North European gall-inducing Euura sawflies (Hymenoptera, Tenthredinidae, Nematinae), Zootaxa 4302 (1), pp. 1-115 : 84-85

Euura proxima (Serville, 1823)

Nematus proximus Serville, 1823: 69 . Described: ♀. Syntypes probably lost or destroyed ( Lacourt 2000). Type locality: near Paris.

Euura proxima: Prous et al. (2014) .

Nematus proximus Lepeletier, 1823: 67 –68. Described: ♀. Syntypes are the same as for N. proximus Serville. Type locality: near Paris.

Pontania proxima: Konow (1901a) .

Pontania (Pontania) proxima: Viitasaari & Vikberg (1985) .

Nematus (Pontania) proximus: Zhelochovtsev (1988) .

Nematus gallicola Stephens, 1835: 36 . Described: adult, sex not stated. Syntypes may be in BMNH [not examined]. Type locality: near London. According to Cameron (1877a), potential syntypes belong to " N. [ Nematus ] Vallisnieri and a Cryptocampus ".

Nematus vallisnierii Hartig, 1837: 205 –207. Described: ♀, larva, gall, recorded host: Weiden [ Salix ]. Lectotype, ♀, designated below. Type locality: Berlin area ["hiesiger Gegend "].

Nematus redii Contarini, 1852: 129 –130, plate V. Described: ♀, recorded host: Salix fragilis . There is no record of extant type material. Type locality: northern Italy. Note: reared from Salix × fragilis ; the illustration of galls on the plate confirms that these belong to E. proxima .

Pontania gallicola Costa, 1852 [this is a separatum from the journal issued in 1854]: 1–17, 1 plate. Described: ♀, larva, gall, recorded host: Salix russelliana [= S. × fragilis ]. There is no record of extant type material. Type locality: near Naples. Secondary homonym of Nematus gallicola Stephens, 1835 . Note: the galls illustrated on the plate definitely belong to E. proxima .

Messa hyalina Norton, 1864: 8 . Described: ♀. Holotype, ♀, ANSP [not examined]. Type locality: New Jersey. Synonymy with P. proxima by Benson (1960b).

Euura flavipes Cameron, 1885: 211 –212. Described: ♀, ♂. Syntypes possibly in BMNH [not examined]. Type locality: Scotland, Rannoch and Clydesdale. Synonymy with P. proxima by Benson (1958).

Pontania daedala MacGillivray, 1921: 33 –34. Described: ♀. Lectotype, ♀, designated by Frison (1927), INHS [not examined]. Type locality: Ithaca, New York. Synonymy with P. proxima by Zinovjev & Smith (2000).

Pontania capreae (on S. alba , S. × fragilis ): Wahlgren 1951; misidentification.

Notes on types and taxonomy. N. vallisnierii . The lectotype and paralectotypes were labelled as such by Kopelke in 1990, but the designation was not published. Lectotype, ♀, hereby designated, ZSM; labels "Cotype" [red], " Nematus vallisnierii Htg. Th. Hartig det.", " Pontania capreae L. E. Clément det.", " Pontania proxima Lep. ♀ Conde det.", "GBIF-GISHym3454", "Lectotypus N. vallisnierii Htg. 1837 det. Kopelke 1990", " Pontania ♀ proxima (Lep.) Kopelke det. 1990", "Lectotype ♀ Nematus vallisnierii Hartig, 1837 des. Liston 2016". 6♀ paralectotypes, labels similar to lectotype, ZSM.

See below, under E. triandrae , for discussion of taxonomic status.

Variability. Female: Body length: 2.9–4.6mm. Lateral vertex with obscure brown fleck, to black. Male: 3.2mm [only one specimen examined]. Total number of specimens examined: 28.

Genetic data. Insufficient data is available. Good quality COI barcode sequences are available only for two specimens. Their nearest neighbour, differing by about 2.1%, is the sequence of a single E. triandrae . All specimens are from Finland.

Similar species. Morphologically not clearly distinguishable from E. triandrae .

Bionomics. Host plants: Salix alba , S. × fragilis , S. × rubens, S. babylonica ( Kopelke 2005; a rarely used host, or misidentified, according to Zinovjev 1999), S. blanda ( Halstead 2001) , Salix × meyeriana (= Salix pentandra × euxina ), S. euxina ( Zinovjev 2011) , S. fragilis × pentandra ( Mol 2013) , S. excelsa ( Özay 1997) . According to Zinovjev (1999: Table 5), rare records (e.g. Conde 1938) of proxima group galls from S. pentandra are probably attributable to E. proxima , because this willow belongs in the subgenus Salix , like the other host species of E. proxima , whereas E. bridgmanii is restricted to hosts of subgenus Vetrix .

Biology: Al-Saffar & Aldrich (1997), Carleton (1939), Higton (1991), Ivanova-Kasas (1959), Kehl et al. (2010), Kehl & Rambold (2010), Kopelke (1985), Niklas (1955), Slepian & Gabaraeva (1976, 1978, 1981), Slepian & Gurevich (1976). Parthenogenetic species with very rare males ( Benson 1958, Kopelke 1999).

Distribution. South, Central and North Europe (Taeger et al. 2006), north to southern Finland ( Kangas 1985), Caucasus ( Muche 1973), Yakutia ( Popov 2011). Introduced to N. America, Australia and New Zealand ( Muggeridge 1931, Benson 1962, Schmidt & Smith 2009). Occurrence in Sweden: published records; Skåne, Öland ( Wahlgren 1951), Gotland, Närke (Haris 2009), Västergötland ( Lundberg 1963, 1966), Uppland ( Wahlgren 1951), Dalarna, Ångermanland ( Coulianos & Holmåsen 1991). Material examined: Skåne.