Athalia Leach, 1817

Koch, Frank, Pauly, Alain, Hora, Zewdu A. & Boevé, Jean-Luc, 2015, Sawflies of Ethiopia (Hymenoptera: Argidae, Tenthredinidae), Zootaxa 4021 (1), pp. 119-155 : 131

Genus Athalia Leach, 1817

Athalia Leach, 1817: 126 . Type species: Tenthredo spinarum Fabricius, 1793 [= Athalia rosae rosae ( Linnaeus, 1758) ], by subsequent designation of Curtis (1836).

Remarks. The species of Athalia are distributed in the Afrotropical, Oriental and Palaearctic Regions. Forty six valid species are listed from the Afrotropical Region by Taeger et al. (2010). Koch (2010) added two species for southern Africa. Only two species groups have been revised recently: the Athalia vollenhoveni species group ( Koch 2006) includes ten species with an excised anterior margin of the clypeus; the A. himantopus species group ( Koch 2007) includes eight species with a truncate anterior margin of the clypeus. In Athalia , sexual dimorphism is more or less conspicuously developed. The malar space of the male is conspicuously narrower than in the female. The males of the Afrotropical species usually differ from the females by having a pale clypeus. The thorax of the male is uniformly pubescent, but in the female of several species there is a more or less large glabrous patch on the mesosternum. For a correct identification of males, it is necessary to examine the genitalia, especially digitus and cuspis. In females the shape of the hypopygium is of importance for their identification.