Cleptes Latreille, 1802

Wei, Na-sen, Rosa, Paolo & Xu, Zai-fu, 2013, Revision of the Chinese Cleptes (Hymenoptera, Chrysididae) with description of new species, ZooKeys 362, pp. 55-96 : 56-57

Genus Cleptes Latreille, 1802

Cleptes Latreille, 1802: 316. Type species: Sphex semiaurata Linnaeus 1761. Latreille 1802: 316; Aaron 1885: 211; Linsenmaier 1959: 7; Tsuneki 1959: 1; Móczár 1962: 115; Kimsey 1981: 801; Bohart and Kimsey 1982: 3; Kimsey and Bohart 1991: 43; Móczár 1996a: 153; 1996b: 134; 1997b: 26; 1998b: 502; 2000a: 319; 2000b: 297; 2001: 905; Rosa 2006: 82; Móczár 2009: 131; Ha et al. 2011: 491.

Diagnosis.

Cleptes can be distinguished from all other genera of Cleptinae by metasoma convex beneath, four visible tergites in females and five in males.

Other distinctive characteristics are: face convex; eyes not bulging and following the head profile in frontal view; malar space usually longer than 1 MOD; mandible robust, with two or more subapical teeth; clypeus usually emarginated beneath the antennal socket; pronotum narrowed anteriorly, and divided by a transverse crenate sulcus which delineates a bulbous collar; mesopleuron with subalar fossa and scrobal pit, scrobal sulcus and omaulus occasionally present; propodeum with long dorsal surface and vertical posterior declivity, posterolaterally angulate to dentate; claws with one small perpendicular submedial tooth; T-I and T-II dorsally subequal to or shorter than T-III and T-IV; forewing with weakly defined discoidal cell and an incomplete, or lacking, radial sector vein; ovipositor long and robust.

Distribution.

There are 90 valid Cleptes species in the world, 83 of which are found in the Holarctic region, eight in the Oriental region (two of which are in both the Holarctic and Oriental regions), and one in the Neotropical region.

Remarks.

Móczár (1962) and Kimsey (1981) divided the genus Cleptes into subgenera, which later were downgraded by Kimsey and Bohart (1991) into species groups. Recently Móczár (1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b, 1998c, 2000a, 2000b, 2001) reviewed the genus by studying all the available types, and adopted the subgeneric and species group system. In this study we consider Cleptes subdivided into species groups, without subgeneric distinctions.

Keys to the Chinese species of the genus Cleptes Latreille

Females. Unknown for Cleptes eburnecoxis sp. n., Cleptes mandsuricus , Cleptes sinensis sp. n., Cleptes tibetensis sp. n., Cleptes townesi ,and Cleptes villosus sp. n. Males. Unknown for Cleptes albonotatus sp. n., Cleptes asianus , Cleptes flavolineatus sp. n., Cleptes helanshanus sp.n., Cleptes metallicorpus , Cleptes niger sp. n., Cleptes shengi sp. n., and Cleptes taiwanus .