Euodynerus Dalla Torre, 1904

Selis, Marco, Fateryga, Alexander V. & Cilia, Giovanni, 2024, The genus Euodynerus Dalla Torre in Europe and the Maghreb (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae), Zootaxa 5537 (2), pp. 151-194 : 159-160

Genus Euodynerus Dalla Torre, 1904

Euodynerus Dalla Torre, 1904: 38 , name for section II of division III of subgenus Leionotus of genus Odynerus Latreille in de Saussure (1853: 177) (40 species); declared available from date of publication by Opinion 893 ( ICZN 1970) (no. 1873 of Official List of Generic Names in Zoology). Type species: Vespa dantici Rossi, 1790 , by subsequent designation of Blüthgen (1938: 277); confirmed by Opinion 893 (no. 2331 of Official List of Specific Names in Zoology).

Extraepipona Gusenleitner, 2014: 537 , genus. Type species: Extraepipona occulta Gusenleitner, 2014 , by original designation and monotypy. Syn. nov.

Subgeneric classification. The current subgeneric division of Euodynerus includes three subgenera, with Euodynerus s. str. being almost cosmopolitan, Pareuodynerus Blüthgen having a mainly Holarctic distribution, and Incolepipona Giordani Soika having only one species endemic to the Bonin Islands. While the first two are well distinct and easily recognizable on the basis of generally constant characters, the subgenus Incolepipona is mainly based on characters that are widely subject to variability in many genera of Eumeninae : proportions of clypeus and tegula, development of the carinae on mesepisternum, metanotum and propodeum, convexity of S2 and sculpture ( Giordani Soika 1994). The comparison of a paratype of the only species included in Incolepipona , Euodynerus convergens Giordani Soika, 1994 ( Figs 1A, B ), with several other species of Euodynerus has revealed that these differences are inconsistent and do not support the recognition of a distinct subgenus. In particular, E. convergens shows evident affinities with the species included in the subgenus Pareuodynerus based on the morphology of vertex, metanotum and propodeum, while the other characters have purely specific value. For this reason, the subgenus Incolepipona is synonymized under Pareuodynerus .

The study of monospecific Eumeninae genera conducted by the first author (M. Selis, unpublished data) also revealed a further synonymy at the genus-level. Gusenleitner (2014) described the genus Extraepipona Gusenleitner, 2014 to accommodate a single species from Iran, Extraepipona occulta Gusenleitner, 2014 , and compared it with the genus Anterhynchium de Saussure , proposing only the shape of the clypeus and of the axillary fossa as diagnostic characters. As already predictable from the different shapes of the axillary fossa, the examination of the holotype of Extraepipona occulta ( Figs 1C, D ) demonstrated that this taxon has little affinity with the genus Anterhynchium , but presents all the diagnostic characters of Euodynerus , such as T1 with a translucent margin and morphology of metanotum and propodeum, leading to the synonymy of Extraepipona with Euodynerus . In particular, Euodynerus occultus , comb. nov. seems closely related to another Iranian species, Euodynerus annae ( Kostylev, 1937) (which is the senior synonym of Euodynerus shirazensis Giordani Soika, 1970 , syn. nov., after examining the types of both species, Figs 1E–H ), from which it is however easily differentiated by its color pattern and some morphological characters (e.g. dorsal carinae of the propodeum, sculpture).

These synonymies lead the taxonomy of the genus Euodynerus to a division into two subgenera, Euodynerus s. str. and Pareuodynerus , however some considerations must be made. Our molecular data show both subgenera as non-monophyletic, since some species attributed to the subgenus Pareuodynerus ( E. bidentiformis , E. bidentoides and E. strigatus ) do not form a monophyletic group with the remaining species of the subgenus but are positioned separately in the clade formed by the species of the nominotypical subgenus. Although COI analysis is known to have limited power in resolving deeper phylogenetic relationships ( Trunz et al. 2016), the results presented here may indicate that the currently recognized subgenera in Euodynerus do not represent monophyletic natural groups, and sampling of more conserved genes than COI will be necessary to solve this issue. In addition to the need for more conserved genetic markers, it will be necessary to sample Euodynerus species from the entire known range of the genus and species belonging to related genera, since on the basis of morphological studies the nominotypical subgenus appears to be constituted by different phyletic lineages (see Appendix 1 for list of examined species): as already highlighted by Selis (2024), some Afrotropical species form a well-defined group with affinities to the genus Proepipona Giordani Soika , as is also observed in numerous New World species that show greater similarities with the genus Pachodynerus de Saussure than with the Old World species of Euodynerus s. str. A special case is constituted by the Australian species attributed to the genus Pseudepipona de Saussure by Giordani Soika (1962) and recently moved to Euodynerus by Carpenter & Brown (2021), as some of them show only a superficial similarity to Euodynerus , resulting morphologically similar to Pseudabispa bicolor (de Saussure) , a species which in turn shows little similarity to the other species of Pseudabispa van der Vecht. A complete phylogeny of Euodynerus will likely lead to important changes in the current subgeneric taxonomy of the genus.

Figures

FIGURE 1. A–B, Euodynerus convergens Giordani Soika, female paratype. C–D, Euodynerus occultus (Gusenleitner), comb. nov., female holotype. E–F, Euodynerus annae (Kostylev), female syntype. G–H, Euodynerus shirazensis Giordani Soika, female paratype. Figures 1C, D courtesy of OLML, downloaded from ZOBODAT (2024). Figures 1E, F courtesy of Yulia V. Astafurova (ZISP).