Philanthus schulthessi Maidl, 1924

Malash, Alyaa A., Edmardash, Yusuf A. & Gadallah, Neveen S., 2023, The genera Philanthus Fabricius, 1790 and Philanthinus de Beaumont, 1949 (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae: Philanthinae) in Egypt, with a new record and the description of a new species, Zootaxa 5249 (2), pp. 151-189 : 172-178

publication ID	https://doi.org/ 10.11646/zootaxa.5249.2.1
publication LSID	lsid:zoobank.org:pub:52C66599-6FC8-4A2D-BEA4-8D1CAC33EEE6
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7688505
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03F95931-6307-4269-288F-FA4BFCA6FE89
treatment provided by	Plazi
scientific name	Philanthus schulthessi Maidl, 1924
status

Treatment

Philanthus schulthessi Maidl, 1924 View in CoL

Figs 15A–C View FIGURE 15 , 16A, B View FIGURE 16 , 17A–D View FIGURE 17

Philanthus schulthessi Maidl, 1924: 242 View in CoL , ♀.

Diagnosis. Body length 11–13.5 mm (female).

Greatly resembles female of P. minor , but differs from that species in having the body punctures conspicuously denser ( Figs 15A–C View FIGURE 15 , 16A, B View FIGURE 16 , 17A–D View FIGURE 17 ); metapleuron densely pilose (inconspicuous in P. minor ) ( Fig. 16A View FIGURE 16 ); colour pattern of gaster ( Fig. 16C View FIGURE 16 , 17B View FIGURE 17 ); antenna whitish basally and pale reddish at the rest ( Figs 15B View FIGURE 15 , 17B View FIGURE 17 ) (basal segments yellowish and the rest of flagellum black in P. minor ( Fig. 9C View FIGURE 9 )); gastral terga with conspicuously denser punctures, interspaces smaller than puncture diameter, thus appearing dull ( Figs 16C View FIGURE 16 , 17B View FIGURE 17 ) (less dense, with larger interspaces and shiny in P. minor ( Fig. 9A View FIGURE 9 )).

Material examined: 1♀, Marsa Matruh, 15.ix.1957, Aly collector ( ASUA) ; 1♀, Marsa Matruh, vii.1952, Dr. T. S. collector ( ASUA) ; 1♀, Marsa Matruh, 20.viii.1955, Aly collector ( ASUA) (all were mistakenly identified as P. minor ); a photograph from the OÖLM : 1♀, Marsa Matruh, 22–29.viii.1954 , collector? (det. W.J. Pulawski, 1978).

Previous Egyptian records: Marsa Matruh ( Dollfuss 2017; present study).

Extralimital distribution: Chad, Libya Mauritania, Sudan.

Remarks. In his Mauritanian paper, de Beaumont (1953) has mistakenly identified P. schulthessi as P. minor . However, because of some differences between the specimens examined by him and the true minor (the ocelloocular distance; the degree of emargination of pronotum; the dense punctures; and the colour of gastral T 1 and T 2) he treated it as a subspecies of P. minor . In 1956, comparing his Mauritanian specimens with schulthessi from Wadi Wour (an island near Khartoum, Sudan), he found them conspecific, and thus he corrected the Mauritanian minor subsp. of 1953 to be P. schulthessi .

The specimens examined from the ASUA collection were identified as P. minor , by comparing them with the photos of P. schulthessi received from OÖLM, they were found to be conspecific. Their characters also agree well with the Libyan specimen of de Beaumont’s P. schulthessi (1956:184) and to a large extent with figs 15, 16 ( de Beaumont, 1956:184). All specimens under study as well as that photographed by OÖLM were collected from Marsa Matruh between May and September (1952–1957).