Epirhyssa Cresson, 1865

Rousse, Pascal & Noort, Simon Van, 2014, A review of the Afrotropical Rhyssinae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) with the descriptions of five new species, European Journal of Taxonomy 91, pp. 1-42 : 11-12

Genus Epirhyssa Cresson, 1865

Hierax Tosquinet, 1903: 255 .

Rhyssonota Kriechbaumer, 1890: 489 .

Sychnostigma Baltazar, 1961: 75 .

Diagnosis (updated from Townes 1969 and Gauld 1991)

Small to large insects (fore wing length 6–25 mm), usually orange or yellow interspersed with black maculae; clypeus very small, not subdivided, often with a subapical ridge bearing median and/or lateral weak to strong tubercles; ventral margin of clypeus thin, slightly concave, often with lateral corners produced; mandible not twisted, stout, strongly constricted basally, then weakly tapered, apically bidentate with lower tooth pointed (may appear chisel-like when worn) and upper tooth blunt or chisellike; occipital carina complete to nearly absent, when ventrally present joining hypostomal carina above mandibular base; hypostomal carina strongly raised above mandible base; subocular sulcus absent, but malar area granulate; pronotum long, mid-dorsally with a deep invagination and with thin margin projecting beyond invagination; antero-lateral margin of pronotum broadly rounded in front, its lower corner acute and slightly in-turned; epomia weak to moderately strong, contiguous with and diverging from anterior pronotal margin; mesoscutum with strong transverse rugosities; notauli anteriorly strong and meeting in centre of mesoscutum, defining an anteriorly abruptly rounded median lobe; mesopleuron moderately long, epicnemial carina most often present laterally and reaching to or above lower corner of pronotum, its dorsal end evanescent; mesopleural suture weakly angled centrally; submetapleural carina weak to strong, more or less complete; propodeum of moderate length, without carina dorsally but pleural carina distinct; tarsal claws simple, large; fore wing with areolet open, 2m–cu slightly basal to distinctly apical to rs–m; hind wing with distal abscissa of Cu present, joining Cu&cu–a near or at junction with M; mid trochantellus with a ventral longitudinal ridge; metasoma moderately slender, tergites smooth to finely sculptured; tergite 1 fused with its sternite and without glymma; apical margins of tergites 3–5 hardly to strongly concave; female with sternites 2–4 (but see E. brianfisheri sp. nov.) with an anterior pair of tubercles, and with an apical truncate horn-like process on last tergite, ovipositor stout, laterally compressed, 4– 5x longer than hind tibia; male with metasoma slenderer and subgenital plate elongate, posteriorly rather concave.

Species richness and distribution ( Yu et al. 2012)

Epirhyssa is mostly circumtropical with some Far-Eastern species occurring up to Northern Japan; it includes 113 valid species with only six reported from the Afrotropical Region, to which we add here five new species.