Holopyga generosa! (Belgium)

[Grijzezeehond]

Hello, can this specimen be identified with this picture that I just took in my garden?
(photo: 13th of June 2014, at 13:10)

[Euchroeus]

Hallo Kurt,

nice shot!
It is a female of Holopyga generosa (Foerster).

Ciao!

Paolo

[Grijzezeehond]

Thanks Paolo! How can you tell? What books can you recommend? I just ordered Kunz' 'Die Goldwespen Baden-Würtembergs'.

K

[Alex]

Thanks for the nice pictures!

Holopyga has a quite distinct habitus, drew some quick red lines ontop of your image to show them (from left to right):

1. Medial vien sharply bent in the middle, almost at a 90 degree (Hedychridium & Hedychrum has it evenly, and weakly, arched).
2. Mesopleuron large and triangularly drawn out to a sharp point (Hedychridium & Hedychrum has it evenly rounded)
3. Head shape distinct, triangular behind the eye.

These characters are also present in other genera, as in Pseudomalus posted in http://www.chrysis.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=25322 for example, although some not as pronounced. The mesopleuron is especially large and pointed in Holopyga, compare it to Pseudomalus and I'm sure you can see the difference.

Kunz' interpretation of species are a little too conservative, lumping many species, now considered (and considered by Linsenmaier back as early as in the fifties) distinct, into just one. His keys are good however, much easier to understand compared to Linsenmaier's work, and the species complexes he considered as one species are often hard to key anyway.

Linsenmaier's 1997 "Die Goldwespen der Schweiz" is also a very good buy, with marvelous illustrations of many species, although the keys are somewhat hard to use at times.

A book that is now freely available on the net is:
http://www.royensoc.co.uk/sites/default/files/Vol06_Part05.pdf
I dont think its complete for the Belgian fauna, but seeing as its just a click away why not have a look Morgan was much like Kunz, and treated many species-complexes as just one, but its not a bad book by any means.

Some genera & species are not called the same in the different books, but if you refer to the http://www.chrysis.net/database/chr_checklist_en.php on this website you will find synonyms etc. Or just post and ask

/Alex

PS. sorry for the megapost, I was just going to link Morgan's book and... then it just kept growing