Hedychridium planatum Bischoff, 1910

Rosa, Paolo & Pavesi, Maurizio, 2020, The case of Holopyga gogorzae Trautmann, 1926 and revision of the H. miranda group (Hymenoptera, Chrysididae), Natural History Sciences 7 (2), pp. 39-56 : 54

Hedychridium planatum Bischoff, 1910 and Hedychridium planatum var. auratum Bischoff, 1910

( Fig. 15A,B )

Hedychridium planatum Bischoff, 1910: 439 . Syntypes ♂♂; Tunisia: Zaghuan ( MfN).

Hedychridium (Hedychridium) planatum sensu Linsenmaier, 1999: 87 ( Hedychridium luteum group), nec Bischoff, 1910.

Holopyga planata ( Bischoff, 1910) comb. nov. = likely syn. of Holopyga fervida ( Fabricius, 1781) .

Hedychridium planatum var. auratum Bischoff, 1910: 439. Holotype ♂; Tunisia: Zaghuan ( MfN).

Holopyga planata var. aurata ( Bischoff, 1910) comb. nov. = likely syn. of Holopyga fervida ( Fabricius, 1781) .

Bischoff (1910) described Hedychridium planatum on two specimens, supposedly male and female, without designation of a holotype ( Fig. 15A ), and H. planatum var. auratum on a single male specimen, to be considered holotype by monotypy ( Fig. 15B ), all from Tunisia, Zaghuan [= Zaghouan]. After examination of the type material in Berlin collections, the two syntypes of H. planatum proved two males.

Both H. planatum and H. planatum var. auratum indeed are no doubt Holopyga , not Hedychridium . They appear most similar to the highly variable, as for colouring, Holopyga fervida ( Fabricius, 1781) , one of the commonest chrysidids also in Tunisia. They however differ from the latter in some punctation features; particularly in the type of var. auratum , the mesoscutellar punctation is unusual for H. fervida and its entire group. This difference was overlooked in the original description (“ formae typicae simillima, differt solum colore ”). It is most likely that the two taxa will prove conspecific, and H. planatum var. auratum not else than an anomalous specimen of H. fervida ; yet the question will better be dealt with in our forthcoming revision of the whole H. fervida group.

Inclusion by Linsenmaier (1999) of Hedychridium planatum Bischoff, 1910 into his H. luteum species group most likely resulted from considering impossible a confusion, by Bischoff, between a Holopyga sp. fervida -like and a Hedychridium , and from a consequent attempt to assign H. planatum , according to described features, to one of his species groups. No Hedychridium species seems to have been positively recognized by Linsenmaier as H. planatum , since no specimen is to be found under that name in Linsenmaier’s collection.

Figures

Fig. 15 - Holopyga habitus, dorsal view / habitus, visione dorsale. A) Hedychridium planatum Bischoff, 1910, ♂ syntype / syntypus. B) Hedychridium planatum var. auratum Bischoff, 1910, ♂ holotype / holotypus. C) Holopyga gloriosa var. gogorzae Trautmann, 1926, ♂ lectotype / lectotypus. D) Holopyga rubra Linsenmaier, 1999, ♂ paratype (allotype) / paratypus (allotypus). E) Holopyga rubra Linsenmaier, 1999, ♀ holotype / holotypus. Scale bar = 1.0 mm.