Hedychrum niemelai Linsenmaier, 1959

Paukkunen, Juho, Rosa, Paolo, Soon, Villu, Johansson, Niklas & Ødegaard, Frode, 2014, Faunistic review of the cuckoo wasps of Fennoscandia, Denmark and the Baltic countries (Hymenoptera: Chrysididae), Zootaxa 3864 (1), pp. 1-67 : 20

22. Hedychrum niemelai Linsenmaier, 1959

Hedychrum verhoeffi Niemelä 1950: 132 , nomen nudum.

Hedychrum aureicolle niemeläi Linsenmaier 1959: 38 . Holotype ♀; Switzerland: Wallis (NMLS) (examined).

Hedychrum aureicolle niemelaei: Valkeila 1962: 64 , Erlandsson 1971: 88.

Hedychrum aureicolle niemelai: Tumšs 1976: 22 .

Hedychrum niemelaei: Silfverberg 1981: 61 , Nilsson 1986: 86 (as H. niemalaei ), Nilsson 1991: 86, Sörensson 2000: 23, Abenius & Larsson 2004, Abenius & Larsson 2005, Abenius 2006: 57, Sörensson 2006, Abenius & Hellqvist 2007: 66, Larsson 2007: 22, Karlsson 2008, Franzén & Norén 2009: 40, Johansson 2009 (as H. niemelae ), Fritz & Larsson 2010: 151, Jantunen & Saarinen 2010: 49, Johansson 2010: 118, Larsson 2011: 29, Molander 2011: 95, Appelqvist 2012: 21, Hallin 2012, Larsson 2012: 13, Ranta 2012: 32.

Hedychrum niemelai: Vikberg 1986b: 67 , Nilsson 1988: 97, Söderman & Vikberg 2003: 44, Soon 2004: 19, 45, Hallin 2007: 21, Salminen 2007: 143, Abenius 2009: 59, Hallin 2009: 10, Artsdatabanken 2010, Orlovskytė et al. 2010: 146, Ødegaard et al. 2011: 64, Franzén et al. 2012: 27, Rosa & Soon 2012, Dyntaxa 2013, Johansson, in press.

Hedychridium [!] aureicolle [nec ( Mocsáry, 1889)]: Kalniņš et al. 2007: 142.

Hedychrum niemeläi: Valtonen 2007: 20 .

Material examined. *Russian Fennoscandia (total 14 exx.): Ik: Kivennapa [= Pervomaiskoe]; Muolaa [= Pravdino]; Sakkola [= Gromovo]; Uusikirkko [= Polyany]; Äyräpää [= Baryshevo]; Ka: Viipuri [= Vyborg]; Kl: Kurkijoki.

Distribution. Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, *Russian Fennoscandia.—Transpalearctic: from Europe to China (Manchuria) ( Linsenmaier 1959).

Remarks. The species is closely related to H. nobile , from which it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish. It is not as common as H. nobile , but its distribution area seems to extend slightly further north in Finland and Sweden. Kunz (1994) synonymized H. niemelai with H. nobile on the basis of the similarity of male genitalia. Recent authors, however, consider them to be separate species. Unpublished molecular data also support the recognition of H. niemelai as a valid species. Soon (2004) reported the species from Denmark based on 43 specimens deposited in ZMUC.

Many authors have used the spelling niemelaei instead of the correct form niemelai for the name of this species (e.g. Jacobs & Kornmilch 2007). Originally, the taxon was named after the Finnish entomologist Paavo Niemelä as niemeläi by Linsenmaier (1959). According to the ICZN (1999, article 32.5.2.1.), diacritic marks are deleted in scientific names, unless the name was based upon a German word and published before 1985, in which case the umlaut sign is deleted from a vowel and the letter "e" is inserted after that vowel. Because Niemelä is a Finnish name (not German), as cited by the author in the original description, the correct spelling is niemelai .