Checklist of British and Irish Hymenoptera - Ichneumonidae

Abstract Background The checklist of British and Irish Ichneumonidae is revised, based in large part on the collections of the Natural History Museum, London and the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh. Distribution records are provided at the country level. New information Of the 2,447 species regarded as valid and certainly identified, 214 are here recorded for the first time from the British Isles. Neorhacodinae is considered to be a separate subfamily rather than a synonym of Tersilochinae. Echthrini is treated as a junior synonym of the tribe Cryptini, not Hemigastrini. Echthrus Gravenhorst and Helcostizus Förster are classified in Cryptini rather than, respectively, Hemigastrini and Phygadeuontini.


Introduction
The Ichneumonidae is one of two families of the superfamily Ichneumonoidea, along with the Braconidae. Given the size of each family in Britain (over 1,300 braconids and nearly 2,500 ichneumonids) we are publishing the two checklists separately. This is one part of a series of papers revising the British and Irish list of Hymenoptera, that started with , Broad and Livermore (2014b), Broad and Livermore (2014a) and Liston et al. (2014). For the background and rationale behind these British Hymenoptera checklists see . The bases for the ichneumonid taxonomy are Yu and Horstmann (1997) and Taxapad (Yu et al. 2012) (ichneumonid data for both compiled by Klaus Horstmann). I have not relied on Yu et al. (2012) for data on species occurrence in Britain. Rather, I have relied mostly on the primary literature and collections, especially NMS and BMNH. Indeed, large parts of the checklist rely on original work, identifying specimens in these collections. The collections of the NMS have been invaluable in updating this checklist as Mark Shaw has very actively encouraged taxonomists to use the collections, which contain a large amount of recently collected, often reared, material. The late J.F. Perkins also did a huge amount to improve the BMNH collection of Ichneumonidae that was not really reflected in his published output. I have made great use of Perkins's identifications as well as Horstmann's, Andrey Khalaim's and many other workers, including my own. Many Irish records are taken from O' Connor et al. (2007).
All additions to and deletions from the British list since Fitton (1978) are recorded as well as country-level distribution within the British Isles (but regarding the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as one geographical unit), i.e. England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Isle of Man. The current numbers of valid, certainly identified ichneumonid species are listed per subfamily and by country in Table 1. This highlights the lack of data from countries other than England. Because the ichneumonid literature is extensive and scattered I also provide many taxonomic references. Some changes to classification are employed here, following molecular phylogenetic studies (Laurenne et al. 2006, Quicke et al. 2009). Two genera that are usually classified in Hemigastrini and Phygadeuontini -Echthrus Gravenhorst and Helcostizus Förster -are transferred to Cryptini (as originally suggested by Laurenne et al. 2006), which means that Echthrini Narayanan & Lal, 1958, becomes a junior synonym of Cryptini Kirby, 1837. And, contrary to Quicke et al. (2009), Neorhacodinae is again regarded as a valid subfamily, not as a synonym of Tersilochinae, following phylogenetic work by A.M.R. Bennett et al. (in prep.) (Broad, Shaw & Fitton, in prep.) provides an introduction to the biology, classification and identification of this family of parasitoid wasps and will be published soon.

Materials and methods
For a more detailed description of the background and rationale to the Hymenoptera checklist, see . I provide rather extensive Palaearctic synonymy and citations because if you do not have access to the Taxapad database (Yu et al. 2012) it can be very difficult to trace the fate of names in the voluminous and scattered literature, although some of the functionality of the catalogue is available online. Conventions and abbreviations are listed below. When there are no countries listed for a species, there are two explanations. First, the species has been carried over from the previous checklist (Fitton 1978) and, although I have not seen any British specimens I have no reason to doubt the original identification. Second, specimens in collections are labelled with imprecise locality data, such as 'Great Britain'. This is the case with many of the older collections. praebellator Aubert, 1967 Distribution: England, Scotland [schneideri Krieger, 1897] Recorded from Ireland by Johnson (1921) (and not listed by Fitton 1978 as not known from Britain), but J.P. Brock has seen no authentic British or Irish material.

Distribution: England
Notes: One British specimen in BMNH is probably coxalis; another British specimen has been labelled 'robusta Wold.' (= Scirtetes) and an English specimen has been labelled as 'interruptus'. Locality data from reared specimens in NMS, det. K. Horstmann.

Distribution: England, Scotland
Notes: British specimens belong to the subspecies impunctatus Schwarz, 1991 (Schwarz andShaw 1998 (2006), rather than in the Hemigastrini, where it was placed by . Townes and Townes (1960) had previously placed Echthrus in the Cryptini based on similarities to the genera that  classified as the subtribe Gabuniina. The molecular results of Laurenne et al. (2006) support this interpretation, in agreement with Townes and Townes (1962).

Distribution: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland
Notes: added by Schwarz (2005); see note under incubitor. Irish occurrence confirmed by a specimen (coll. A. Anderson) identified by M. Schwarz. The species referred to as ornatus in older literature is now known to be bipunctatus (Schwarz and Shaw 1998).

Notes:
The name rufocincta was listed as a doubtfully placed species of Hemiteles by Fitton (1978) whilst the names distincta and capreola were listed as species of Acrolyta and Eudelus, respectively.

Distribution: England
Notes: Raised from synonymy with simillimus by Schwarz and Shaw (2000).

Distribution: England
Notes: Listed as Encrateola mediovittatus by Fitton (1978), it was transferred to Acrolyta by Horstmann (1983) but left as possibly belonging to Eudelus but probably to a new genus by Schwarz and Shaw (2000); although its generic position is in doubt its status as a British species is not. Recent specimens from Worcestershire (coll. J. Rush, specimens in BMNH and Schwarz coll.) have been identified by M. Schwarz.

Distribution: Wales
Notes: Added by Schwarz and Shaw (1999), but it was overlooked that Fitton (1978) had treated this as a species of Charitopes.

Odontoneura sp. A Distribution: Scotland
Notes: added by Schwarz and Shaw (2010); to be described by the late K. Horstmann (in prep.).

Distribution: England
Notes: added by Horstmann (2001d); listed as a synonym of hercynicus by Yu and Horstmann (1997).

Theroscopus rufulus (Gmelin, 1790)
Nomenclature:  (2000) frequently has different dates of publication and endings of specific names to those in Yu and Horstmann (1997), the latter is followed. Unless stated otherwise, distribution data from Aubert (2000), Fitton (1976), for type localities, and the collections of NHM, NMS and UM.

Tribe CHRIONOTINI Uchida, 1957
Nomenclature: OLETHRODOTINI Townes, 1970 Notes: Distribution data from Shaw and Kasparyan (2002). Note that Olethrodotini has generally been used as the name for this small tribe but Chrionotini has precedence.  (2000) but as a valid species in Yu and Horstmann (1997).

Distribution: Scotland
Notes: Added by Aubert (2000); one specimen in BMNH from 'Wissant', which could not be located in a Gazetteer. 'England' is given in Aubert (2000)  Notes: Distribution data from Gauld and Mitchell (1977a), Aubert (2000) and BMNH. Notes: Distribution data from Horstmann (2002a) who also provides synonymy, and BMNH.

Distribution: England
Notes: Placed in Lagarotis in Yu and Horstmann (1997) and by Horstmann (2011b), although Aubert (2000) treated this as a species of Alexeter.

Mesoleius brevipalpis
Notes: As a synonym of sulphurata in Yu and Horstmann (1997) but treated as a separate species by Aubert (2000).

Distribution: Scotland
Notes: BMNH, NMS, added here; Aubert (2000) uses alpinus as the valid name but this is considered a nomen oblitum, as is flavifrons (Yu and Horstmann 1997).

Catoglyptus sulcatus Thomson, 1893
Notes: Added by Aubert (2000), who refers to material in BMNH but the only specimen that could be found is one labelled as sulcatus or splendens det. Aubert.

Distribution: England, Scotland
Notes: Replacement name, ambulator preoccupied; treated as a synonym of jactator Thunberg by Aubert (2000) but the two species were separated by Horstmann (1999b).

Distribution: England
Notes: The only English specimens listed by Kerrich (1949) (and possibly the same as those listed by Beirne 1941) were supposedly from the Lichfield district (Carr (1924)) and are thus inadmissable (Perkins 1953, Shaw 2003. There are specimens in BMNH recently identified by S. Klopfstein.
neopulchella Diller, 1980coriacea Dasch, 1964 Distribution: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland Notes: Sometimes identified as coriacea, but this is now classified as the Nearctic subspecies of flavipes (Yu and Horstmann 1997).

Distribution: England
Notes: The only British specimens seen by Perkins (1959) were from the Bridgman collection, apparently lacking locality data. There are recent specimens in BMNH and NMS.

Distribution: England, Scotland
Notes: Added by Gauld and Sithole (2002); recorded (in the context of a host record) as Stethoncus sulcator Aubert, 1963.

Microleptinae
Subfamily MICROLEPTINAE Townes, 1958 Notes: Microleptinae as treated here includes only the genus Microleptes (Broad 2004), contra Humala (1997). Dasch (1992) gives some distribution data. Nomenclature: HELICTINAE Gupta, 1987 Notes: Traditionally, the Orthocentrinae comprised a tightly-knit group of genera related to Orthocentrus but now includes many genera of the former 'Microleptinae' sensu Townes (1971) (Wahl 1990 (2007); it is not yet known whether leucostoma or alpicola occur in Britain or Ireland; a previous listing of leucostoma as a British species rested on a record by Carr (1924), which cannot be considered reliable (see note under Lissonota funebris). Irish record from a specimen in the Canadian National Collection (Ottawa), det. GRB. Notes: Distribution data taken from Gauld and Mitchell (1977b) and BMNH.  Wahl (1986), Wahl (1990), has been applied much more widely, encompassing the subfamilies Cylloceriinae, Microleptinae and Orthocentrinae. Ichneumon luridator Gravenhorst, 1820

Distribution: England, Scotland
Notes: Fitton and Ficken (1990) synonymised collaris (Thomson, 1883) with tener but Kasparyan (1993) treated it as a valid species and gave characters for their separation; no British specimens of collaris have been seen, it is best separated from tener by the all red pronotum and partly red first metasomal tergite.