The family Leucospidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) from the South of Saudi Arabia, with the first report of the genus Micrapion and description of Leucospis arabica sp. nov.

ABSTRACT

The family Leucospidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) from Saudi Arabia is reviewed. Specimens were mainly collected from the south-western region of the country – Raydah (Abha, Asir), Sajid (Farasan Islands, Jazan) and Wadi Tourabah (Mandaq, Al Baha); and from Egypt – Wadi Khoshb (Sinai Peninsula), as well as a specimen (Leucospis elegans Klug) deposited in the Efflatoun Bey collection, Cairo University, Egypt. The genus Micrapion Kriechbaumer is here recorded for the first time from the fauna of the Arabian Peninsula, with a single species, M. clavaforme. Leucospis arabica Gadallah and Soliman sp. nov. (dorsigera group) is described. Leucospis africana (elegans group) is also newly recorded from the Saudi Arabian fauna, in addition to L. elegans which has been previously recorded. An illustrated key and a list of all leucospid species recorded and expected to occur in Saudi Arabia are provided.

www.zoobank.org/lsid:Zoobank.org:pub:40BEF37F-0D92-4AEF-9990-30C1CFC3A7A7

KEYWORDS:

• Al-Baha
• Asir
• Jazan
• new species
• new records
• key to species
• faunistic list

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Acknowledgements

Sincere gratitude is expressed to Natalie Dale-Skey (British Museum of Natural History, London) for providing us with some photos of Micrapion clavaforme (NHMUK010835083) (https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/). The authors are thankful to Mahmoud S. Abdel-Dayem (KSMA) for mapping, and to Athar M. Gul (KSMA) for help in collecting some specimens.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Dean of Scientific Research at King Saud University by funding the research group NO (RGP-1437-009).