Aglaotilla Brothers, 2018

Taylor, Christopher K., Murphy, Mark V., Hitchen, Yvette & Brothers, Denis J., 2019, Four new species of Australian velvet ants (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae, Aglaotilla) reared from bee and wasp nests, with a review of Australian mutillid host records, Zootaxa 4609 (2), pp. 201-224 : 203-204

Aglaotilla Brothers, 2018

Aglaotilla Brothers, 2018: 358 –361.

Type species. Ephutomorpha submetallescens Turner, 1916a .

Comments. The taxonomic framework for Australian Mutillidae remains rudimentary, particularly regarding generic divisions. Keys to both males and females were provided by André (1895, 1898, 1901); although the 1895 and 1898 keys included the majority of species described to those dates, the 1901 key primarily included only species described in that publication. Turner (1914) reviewed selected species from Western Australia and Tasmania, providing a key to females only. Unfortunately, creating a detailed and up-to-date key to Australian Mutillidae , or even to the genus Aglaotilla alone, would require detailed revisionary work beyond the scope of the current study.

The majority of species of Australian Mutillidae are currently placed in the genus Ephutomorpha André, 1902 , explicitly established as a taxon of convenience to contain all Australasian species that would now be placed in the subfamily Sphaeropthalminae ( Brothers 1975) . André (1902) expressed the expectation that future studies would prove the value of dividing his ‘ Ephutomorpha ’ into several genera. A handful of generic names have also been proposed for more restricted species groups, but relationships between these and the bulk of ‘ Ephutomorpha ’ spe- cies remain uninvestigated. The results of this study have thus proved particularly valuable in associating the sexes of several species which are clearly congeneric, and thus enabling the characterization of a striking new genus, described as Aglaotilla Brothers in an accompanying paper (Brothers, 2018). This genus differs from the other Australasian sphaeropthalmine genera (all placed in Dasymutillini by Brothers & Lelej 2017) as follows: from Ancistrotilla Brothers, 2012 , Australotilla Lelej, 1983 , Bothriomutilla Ashmead, 1899 , Eurymutilla Ashmead, 1899 , Odontomyrme Lelej, 1983 and Ponerotilla Brothers, 1994 by the absence of a well-defined pygidial plate in the females (Brothers 2018: fig. 5) and the bright metallic coloration and hyaline wings of the males; from Ascetotilla Brothers, 1971 by the heavily punctate metapleuron and lateral face of the propodeum in the females and the bright metallic coloration and hyaline wings of the males; and from Ephutomorpha André, 1902 sensu stricto (i.e. those species grouped with the type species, Mutilla aurata Fabricius, 1775 , as discussed by Brothers, 2012) by the lack of a well-defined transverse groove on S2 (figs 3b, 7b, 9b) and the apically constricted T1 without an apical pale integumental band in the females (figs 1c, 3a) (males of Ephutomorpha s.s. are unknown). Many other species currently assigned to Ephutomorpha remain unrevised and may be transferred to new genera in the future; such revisions are beyond the scope of the current paper.

Brothers (2018) provided the first detailed description and illustrations of male genitalia for a species of Aglaotilla , A. submetallescens . In the species described below (except possibly A. micra sp. nov., for which the male is currently unknown) the male genitalia closely resemble those of A. submetallescens in overall appearance with most variation involving length and pilosity of the parameres. Arrangements of the parapenial lobes, cuspides and penis valves vary less obviously between species.