Macromyrme bezdeki, Cascio & Romano & Grita, 2012

Cascio, Pietro Lo, Romano, Marcello & Grita, Flavia, 2012, New species and new records of mutillid wasps from the Socotra Archipelago (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 52, pp. 525-544 : 532-534

Macromyrme bezdeki sp. nov.

( Figs. 4 –5)

Type locality. Yemen, Socotra Island (without detailed data).

Type material. HOLOTYPE: ♀ ( NMPC), ‘ Socotra / 1.iv.1997 / B. Pražan lgt.’.

Diagnosis. A female of Macromyrme closely related to M. chrysophthalma ( Klug, 1829) , from which it differs mainly in the width ratio of head and mesosoma, the shape of pronotum, the occurrence of scutellar scale, and the pattern of tergal pubescence and punctuation, as well as of the pygidial streaks.

Holotype description. Body length: 10.1 mm. Habitus as in Fig. 4 . Head dark red, considerably darkened both in malar and occipital region, roundish, 1.09 broader than long and 1.12 broader than pronotum. Sculpture uniformly distributed on whole head, with large and appressed lacunose punctuation, whose inner surface and interpunctual spaces are shiny. Eyes oval, flattened and totally visible from above; maximum orbital diameter 0.47 of interocular distance; ratio between maximum and minimum orbital diameter 1: 0.89; malar space 0.38 of maximum orbital diameter. Clypeus with deeply concave median area, triangular and delimited by slightly prominent lateral margins, clypeal anterior margin straight, laterally distinctly tuberculate. Mandibles dark red, black in apical two thirds, robust, slightly blunt apically, with tooth on inner margin at apical third. Antennae entirely dark red, with scape slightly curved; ratio between scape, pedicel and F1 6.25: 1: 2.5; ratio between F1, F2 and F3 1: 0.6: 0.6.

Mesosoma dark red, slightly darker on pronotal and lateral margins, rectangular and just enlarged anteriorly, 1.18 longer than broad; in lateral view, the profile of the mesosoma is arched; pronotum almost straight, with rounded angles; lateral edges irregularly serrated. Surface punctuation areolate, elongated and often merged, forming irregular longitudinal rows; interpunctual spaces smooth and shiny. Scutellar scale very small but visible. Pleurae smooth, feebly punctate on the propleural and metapleural area, with just wider punctuation on this latter. Propodeum with areolate and dense punctuation on the upper part that becomes more spaced and variolate on lower one, whose interpunctual spaces along lateral margins resemble small but prominent denticles.

Legs entirely red-brown, darker than mesosoma.

Metasoma entirely dark red, 1.44 broader than mesosoma. T1 0.58 narrower than T2. Surface of T1 sparsely and superficially punctate; very small tooth at each side of anterior articulation of T1; T2 substrigulate on whole surface, with foveolate-puncticulate feeble punctuation occurring on spaces among striae, this latter more evident near posterior tergal margin. S1 with large blunt tooth; S2 smooth and shiny, with small and spaced variolate punctuation. Pygidial area as in Fig. 5.

Silvery-yellow sparse pubescence with short and erect setae on head and antennae; same occurs dorsally on mesosoma, where there are also very short and erect reddish-brown setae, and on legs. T1 forward with scattered, long and erect silvery-yellow setae; posterior margin covered by belt of black recumbent setae, interrupted on middle by small, just visible silveryyellow spot. T2 with scattered erect brown setae and covered by black recumbent pubescence with long and thick setae; two ovoidal spots with scattered and short orange-gold recumbent pubescence, separated by distance equal to half of their width, extending from anterior margin to two thirds of tergal surface; scattered and sparse silvery-yellow setae covering the posterior margin; long silvery-yellow setae, visible in lateral view, covering laterally T2 and S2. Pubescence of T3-T5 consisting of silvery, sparse and long setae. Felt lines barely visible, 1.42 longer than their distance from posterior margin of T2.

Male. Unknown.

Differential diagnosis. Thanks to the courtesy of our colleague Arkady Lelej, who provided us with an unpublished list of the African species identified by him as belonging to the genus Macromyrme Lelej, 1984 (see LELEJ 1984, LELEJ & BROTHERS 2008) and previously placed within the genus Pycnotilla Bischoff, 1920 , it was possible to exclude any identicality between the specimen from Socotra and its congenerics distributed in the Ethiopian realm. In fact, according to the keys given by BISCHOFF (1920: 182), the occurrence of features such as the uniformly red colour of head and mesosoma and the light-coloured pubescence on T3-T5 is indicated just for Mutilla rufoguttata Magretti, 1892 (now Macromyrme ). We examined the type of this species, collected at Ogaden ( Ethiopia) ( MAGRETTI 1892) and kept at MSNG, and found it to differ strongly from M. bezdeki sp. nov. in the shape of mesosoma, particularly with regard to the distinguishing, irregular conformation of the lateral edges, as well as in the pattern of pubescence on T2, which is characterized by two smaller and more distanced silvery spots and by a posteromedially triangular silvery spot; also, a large silvery spot occurs on the posterior margin of T1, and the head is slightly narrower than mesosoma. The only representative of this genus so far known for Yemen is Macromyrme chrysophthalma , described based on a female collected at ‘Arabia felici’ ( KLUG 1829: 19, Tab. 5, Fig. 3 , as Mutilla ; see also ANDRÉ 1901: 283–285 for a detailed description of the species) and also recently recorded by LELEJ & HARTEN (2006). This species, a specimen of which kept at ZMAN (labelled ‘ Yemen: near Sanaa / iii-iv.1998, PT / A. van Harten leg.’) has been examined, differs from M. bezdeki sp. nov. in the following main features: head remarkably broader than mesosoma; F1 as long as F2 and F3 together; pronotum less arched with well-marked angles; scutellar scale absent; T1 without spot of pubescence in the middle of its posterior fringe; space between the two spots on T2 equal to one quarter of the width of each spot; golden-whitish pubescence forming spots on T2; T2 densely punctate; pygidial plate more widely striate longitudinally.

Etymology. We are pleased to dedicate the new species to our colleague Jan Bezděk, who has greatly facilitated the study of the significant entomological material collected during the Czech expeditions to Socotra.

Zoogeographical notes. Although many uncertainties remain about the taxonomic affinities within this genus, both Macromyrme bezdeki sp. nov. and M. chrysophthalma differ remarkably from the Palaearctic Macromyrme (see EL- TORKEY et al. 2011) and seem to be more related to the Ethiopian species.

Figures

Figs. 2–4. Socotran Mutillidae. 2–3 – Strangulotilla dioscoridea sp. nov.: 2 – habitus of holotype (a – dorsal view, b – lateral view, scale bar = 1 mm), 3 – pygidial plate of the holotype (scale bar = 200 μm). 4–5 – Macromyrme bezdeki sp. nov.: 4 – habitus of the holotype (a – dorsal view, b – lateral view, scale bar = 1 mm), 5 – pygidial plate of the holotype (scale bar = 300 μm).