Irenangelus Schulz, 1906

Binoy, C., Wahis, Raymond & Kumar, P. Girish, 2020, Review of the aberrant spider wasp genus Irenangelus Schulz (Pompilidae Ceropalinae) from the Indian subcontinent with the description of a new species, Zootaxa 4860 (2), pp. 257-266 : 258

Genus Irenangelus Schulz, 1906

Irenangelus Schulz, 1906: 175 .

Type species: Irenangelus hornus Schulz, 1906: 160 (= Agenia reversa Smith, 1873: 448 ), by monotypy.

Diagnosis. Uncoiled antenna, reniform eyes with the inner orbits strongly emarginate and diverging above, a fully exerted labium in both sexes, ocelli in compact triangle far away from eyes, often enlarged, metacoxa normal-sized, less than 1.5× as long as mesocoxa; metatarsal claws normal, divergent and weakly bent apically, with additional tooth ( Kimsey & Wasbauer 2004; Shimizu & Wahis 2007; Loktionov & Lelej 2015).

Biology. Members are found to be cleptoparasites on pompilid wasps Auplopus nyemitawa ( Rohwer, 1919) , A. semialatus ( Williams, 1919) (Pepsinae) and Tachypompilus analis (Fabricius, 1781) (Pompilinae) ( Williams 1919). Irenangelus hikosanus (Wahis, 2007) pursues its host pompilid Platydialepis ryoheii (Ishikawa, 1957) ( Pepsinae ) to prey up on the common host Heteropoda forcipata (Karsch, 1881) (Heteropodidae) ( Shimizu & Wahis 2007).

Distribution. Eastern Palaearctic, Neotropical, Afrotropical ( Madagascar), Oriental and Australian Regions ( Kimsey & Wasbauer 2004; Shimizu & Wahis 2007).

Remarks. A new species, I. acuminatus Binoy & Girish Kumar , sp. nov., is here described with illustrations and is incorporated into a key to species of the Indian subcontinent ( Fig. 23 ).

Figures

FIGURE 23. Distribution map of Irenangelus species occurring in the Indian subcontinent (with extralimital I. pernix (Bingham)).