Hedychrum chalybaeum Dahlbom, 1854

Paukkunen, Juho, Berg, Alexander, Soon, Villu, Odegaard, Frode & Rosa, Paolo, 2015, An illustrated key to the cuckoo wasps (Hymenoptera, Chrysididae) of the Nordic and Baltic countries, with description of a new species, ZooKeys 548, pp. 1-116 : 33

Taxon classification Animalia Hymenoptera Chrysididae

Hedychrum chalybaeum Dahlbom, 1854

Hedychrum chalybaeum Dahlbom, 1854: 64.

Diagnosis.

Length 4-6 mm. The male is easy to differentiate from other Hedychrum species by its entirely green-blue body. Therefore it superficially resembles Holopyga metallica and the male of Holopyga fervida . The female is completely differently coloured: the vertex, pronotum, mesoscutum, mesoscutellum and dorsum of the metasoma are bright red, whereas the ventral and lateral parts of the head and mesosoma, including the legs, are blue or greenish. The pubescence is dark brown and the apicomedial tubercle on S3 of the female is very small.

Distribution.

Latvia, Lithuania. Very rare. The species has been recorded in one locality in Latvia ( Tumšs 1976) and in three localities in Lithuania ( Wengris 1962). - Trans-Palearctic: from western Europe to Russian Far East, Mongolia and China ( Rosa et al. 2014).

Biology.

Habitat: sparsely vegetated sand and loess areas ( Kunz 1994). Adults visit flowers of Apiaceae and Asteraceae ( Heinrich 1964). Flight period: July to August. Host: Cerceris interrupta (Panzer) ( Crabronidae ) ( Schmid-Egger 2000). Host records implicating Bembecinus tridens (Fabricius) ( Crabronidae : Bembicinae) are probably erroneous, as supporting evidence is lacking.