Empria tridens (Konow, 1896) *, 1828

Liston, Andrew, Prous, Marko & Macek, Jan, 2019, On Bulgarian sawflies, including a new species of Empria (Hymenoptera, Symphyta), Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 66 (1), pp. 85-105 : 91

Empria tridens (Konow, 1896) *

Material.

Varna: 1♂ (DEI-GISHym88776), Tsonevo 5 km S, 100 m, 42.982N, 27.451E, 06.04.2018 . 3♂ (including DEI-GISHym88816, DEI-GISHym88736), Staro Oryahovo 2 km SW, 120 m, 42.976N, 27.787E, 09.04.2018 . 1♂, locality as previous, 11.04.2018 . 2♂ (DEI-GISHym31967, DEI-GISHym88857), Dolni Chiflik 2 km SE, 50 m, 42.983N, 27.743E, 13.04.2018 .

The above specimens are unusually coloured. Abdominal terga (1-) 2-5 (-6) are more or less pale, including the normally black areas surrounding the pale unsclerotised patches (Fig. 38 ). The corresponding sterna are also more or less pale (Fig. 39 ). In life, the pale areas are whitish, and more conspicuous than in the pinned specimens, where the colour has become rather brown. No females were collected, so we cannot state whether this sex also exhibits unusual coloration in south-eastern Bulgaria. Empria tridens has a wide Palaearctic distribution ( Prous et al. 2011b). Penis valves are not distinguishable from other E. tridens and genetic data (based on one male DEI-GISHym88776, Fig. 16 ) does not indicate the existence of an additional species either (based on three genes, closest specimens are always other specimens of E. tridens that were studied by Prous et al. 2019).

Figures

Figure 16. Maximum likelihood tree of Empria based on three genes. Best-fit model chosen according to Bayesian information criterion was GTR + R 3. Numbers beside nodes show SH-aLRT support (%) / ultrafast bootstrap support (%) values. Support values for weakly supported branches (<90) are not shown. Letters " f " and " m " stand for " female " and " male ". Numbers at the end of the tip labels refer to the length of the sequence and the number of ambiguous positions (e. g. polymorphisms). Empria candidata and E. multicolor were used to root the tree. The scale bar shows the number of estimated substitutions per nucleotide position.

Figures 38, 39. Unusually coloured Empria tridens DEI-GISHym 31967 male from Bulgaria. 38 dorsal 39 ventrolateral.