Malayepipona assamensis manipurensis, Giordani Soika, 1995

Nguyen, Lien Thi Phuong & Carpenter, James M., 2013, Taxonomic Notes On The Species Of The Genus Malayepipona Giordani Soika (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae) From Northern Vietnam, With Description Of Three New Species, Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 61 (2), pp. 727-734 : 728

Taxonomy of Malayepipona assamensis manipurensis

Gusenleitner (2010) described the new species Indodynerus malickyi based on a single female from Tam Dao NP, Vinh Phuc, Vietnam. Later, he (2012) synonymised this species under Malayepipona assamensis manipurensis Gordani Soika, 1995 , but did not check the type (pers. comm.), and gave no explanation for this change.

Careful examination of his Indodynerus malickyi description and figures, and comparison with the specimens of this species on hand, led us to conclude that I. malickyi belongs to the genus Malayepipona but is not a synonym of Malayepipona assamensis manipurensis Gordani Soika 1995 . This is shown by the following considerations: Gusenleitner (2010) mentioned in his description of Indodynerus malickyi that the second sternum is slightly and smoothly curved while it is strongly convex in the basal half in Malayepipona assamensis ( Soika, 1995) . Judging from Gusenleitner’s fig. 3 of I. malickyi and examining specimens on hand, the first tergum is much less than twice as wide as long, while it is about twice as wide as long in M. assamenssis ( Soika, 1995) . We therefore conclude that Malayepipona malickyi is a valid species.