Iviü». COMP. ZOOL. ^ F) ^n^ Ç-^ ^ . -^ LIBRARY ""' MAY 161966 HARVARD UNIVERSITY. THE GROUP OF PSENULUS PULCHERRIMUS (BINGHAM) (HYMENOPTERA, SPHECIDAE) BY J. P. VAN LITH Rotterdatn, The Netherlands Abstract The distribution in the Indo-Australian and East-Asiatic regions of the group is discussed. The material studied originates from localities in a triangular area formed by Gujarat in the West, Japan in the North and northeastern Australia in the South. The subgenus Eopsenulus Gussakovskij, 1934, was erected for Psenulus iivatai Gussakovskij, 1934 (Japan). This form is regarded here as the Japanese représentative of the group of Psenulus pulcherrimus (Bingham, 1896). The provisional classification as a group is preferred as long as other subgenera of Psenulus are not yet defined. The relationship between the forms from western India and those from northeastern Australia is very close; P. carinijrons Cameron, 1902 (Deesa) and P. scutellatus Turner, 1912 (Queensland), are considered to be subspecies only. Even P. iwatai may prove merely to be a subspecies of the Indian form. P. sinclairi Lai, 1939 (Bombay), which could not be examined, and a probably new subspecies from South India, are also very closely related to P. carinijrons. A key to the species and subspecies is provided. The distribution of the eleven forms is given, together with new records of the species already treated in a previous paper. One new subspecies from New Guinea is described. In a study on Psenulus (Van Lith, 1962) I have provisionally divided the Indo-Australian species (about 70 species and subspecies from this region have been described) into a number of groups, in order to facilitate the future definition of subgenera. Gussakovskij (1934) described the subgenus Eopsenulus for Psenulus iwatai Gussakovskij (Japan). This species differs very much from the other East-Asiatic congeners in having a narrow^ and protruding carina between the antennae. It is evident now that the group of P. pulcherrimus is identical with the subgenus Eopsenulus Gussakovskij. The characters of the latter group are: a slender body, a narrow and protruding carina between the antennae, a largely or completely black scutum, an almost interstitial first recurrent vein of the fore wings, and the female with triangularly or bluntly protruding anterior margin of clypeus and narrow pygidial area. There is a great contrast between the females and the males in the sculpture of the back of the propodeum, viz., almost smooth in the female and coarsely reticulate in the male. It seems premature to delimit more subgenera of Psenulus; therefore I prefer to use in this paper the provisional term "group of P. pulcherrimus" . During the last few years I received material from a larger area than that studied in 1962 and this brings the total number of species and subspecies of the group to ten, probably eleven. The components are distributed over a large triangular area, reaching from Gujarat in India, northward to Japan and from there south-35
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