Neuroleon Navás, 1909

Badano, Davide & Pantaleoni, Roberto Antonio, 2014, The larvae of European Myrmeleontidae (Neuroptera), Zootaxa 3762 (1), pp. 1-71 : 26

Neuroleon Navás, 1909

Diagnosis. Anterior margin of the clypeo-labrum with a small median incision; mandibles equipped with 3 teeth; pronotum covered by long setae and by dolichasters; mesothoracic spiracles conical, raised on tubercle; abdominal spiracles slightly raised; first pair of mesothoracic setiferous processes pedunculated, second pair subpedunculated; VIII sternite with slightly developed odontoid processes; IX sternite equipped with two short rastra each bearing 4 digging setae of which the internal seta is less than a half the size of the others.

Examined species. N. arenarius Navás, 1904 ; N. assimilis (Navás, 1914) ; N. egenus (Navás, 1914) ; N. microstenus (McLachlan, 1898) ; N. nemausiensis (Borkhausen, 1791) ; N. ochreatus (Navás, 1904) .

Comments. Neuroleon is a large genus, including 123 species mainly distributed in the Afrotropical and western Palaearctic regions, with relatively few exponents in the Oriental region ( Michel & Akoudjin 2012). The larvae are very poorly known and they have been certainly described only for N. egenus , N. microstenus and N. ochreatus ( Auber 1956a; Steffan 1965, 1971, 1975; Devetak et al. 2010), see also under N. nemausiensis . The larvae of this genus are very homogeneous in overall morphology, lacking striking morphological differences useful to discriminate them from other genera of Nemoleontini and among themselves.