Taxonomic Notes on Type Materials of Social Wasps \(Hymenoptera
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Natural History Bulletin of Ibaraki University 5: 31–60, 9 February 2001 Ropalidia wasps (Insecta: Hymenoptera; Vespidae, Polistinae) in New Guinea and its adjacent islands (first part) Jun-ichi Kojima Natural History Laboratory, Faculty of Science, Ibaraki University, Mito, 310-8512 Japan Abstract The first part of a taxonomic revision of the Old World polistine genus Ropalidia Guérin-Minéville, 1831, in New Guinea and its adjacent islands is given. Lectotypes of the following species are designated: Icaria wollastoni Meade-Waldo, 1912, Icaria bispinosa Meade-Waldo, 1912, and Icaria torrida Smith, 1863. A new species is described in the Ropalidia loriana-group. Nomenclatural changes include: synonymies of Icaria sexmaculata Cameron, 1911, Ropalidia pratti Cheesman, 1952, R. maculiventris humboldti Cheesman, 1952, and R. mondoensis Cheesman, 1952, under R. maculiventris Guérin-Méneville, 1831, NEW SYNONYMIES; synonymies of Icaria bispinosa Meade-Waldo, 1912, and Ropalidia fasciata erratica Cheesman, 1952, under R. australis (de Saussure, 1853), NEW SYNONYMIES; synonymy of R. fasciola Richards, 1978, under R. dispila (Cameron, 1913), NEW SYNONYMY; synonymy of R. ivorina Cheesman, 1952, under R. jaculator (Smith, 1871), NEW SYNONYMY; synonymy of R. novaeguineae insolens Cheesman, 1952, under R. semihyalinata (Meade-Waldo, 1912), NEW SYNONYMY; synonymies of R. wudai Cheesman, 1952, and R. wudai trullissima Cheesman, 1952, under R. brunnea (Smith, 1859), NEW SYNONYMIES; synonymies of R. domestica Chessman, 1952, and R. sepicana Richards, 1978, under R. nigra (Smith, 1859), NEW SYNONYMIES; synonymy of R. integra Cheesman, 1952, under R. deminutiva Cheesman, 1952, NEW SYNONYMY; synonymy of Polybia papuana Cameron, 1913, under R. albobalteata (Cameron, 1906), REVISED SYNONYMY; synonymy of R. canaria Cheesman, 1952, under R. marginata jucunda (Cameron, 1898), NEW SYNONYMY. Key words Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Polistinae, Ropalidia, New Guinea, lectotype designation, new species, synonymy Introduction 1838]), who described Ropalidia maculiventris from “Dory” [=Manokwari]. Ten years later, Le Guillou Ropalidia Guérin-Méneville, 1831, comprising (1841a) described the second Ropalidia species from about 180 species, is one of the largest polistine genera, Toriton Bay in northwestern New Guinea as Polistes and is spread over the Ethiopian, Oriental and lefebvrei. Around the mid-nineteenth century, de Australian regions (Kojima and Carpenter, 1997). The Saussure (1853-58) described two species in his genus genus, together with Parapolybia de Saussure, 1854, Icaria de Saussure, 1853, from the area, and Smith Polybioides du Buysson, 1913, and Belonogaster de (1859, 1860, 1863, 1865, 1871) described 14 species Saussure, 1854, forms a monophyletic tribe Ropalidiini under the genera Icaria, Polybia Lepeletier, 1836, and (Carpenter, 1991, 1993), which is confined to the Old Odynerus Latreille, 1802; all but two of Smith’s species World. Despite the fact that nearly one-third (55 are currently treated as valid species in Ropalidia species) of the Ropalidia species that are currently (Kojima and Carpenter, 1997). About the end of treated as valid species are distributed in New Guinea nineteenth and early twentieth century, du Buysson and its adjacent islands, taxonomy of Ropalidia in the (1909a, b, 1913) and von Schulthess (1913) respective- area has yet been very poorly studied compared with ly described Polybia loriana, Icaria cohni, Polybia congeners in the Oriental region (van der Vecht, 1941a, novaeguineae and Parapolybia novaeguineae from 1962; Das and Gupta, 1984, 1989) and in Australia New Guinea and the adjacent islands. Around the same (Richards, 1978; Kojima, 1999a, b), as well as with the period, Cameron (1898, 1906a, b, 1911, 1913) describ- other three genera of the Ropalidiini (Parapolybia: van ed 20 Ropalidia species from this region under the der Vecht, 1966; Polybioides: Bequaert, 1918; van der genera Icaria, Polistratus Cameron, 1906, Polistes Vecht, 1966; Belonogaster: Richards, 1982; Hensen Latreille, 1802, Polybia, Odynerus and Ancistrocerus and Blommers, 1987; Kojima, 2001). Wesmael, 1836, of which six are currently considered The first record of Ropalidia from New Guinea is of as valid species. Meade-Waldo (1911, 1912; also Guérin-Méneville (1831, in Duperrey et al., “1826”[- Meade-Waldo and Morley, 1914) described five species 32 J. Kojima in Icaria, all of which are currently considered valid, study, either van der Vecht or I followed the subgeneric and studied distribution and synonymic relationships of division defined by Richards (1978), which was shown ten species having been described by other authors. to be supported by no robust grounds (Kojima, 1997a, However, neither Cameron nor Meade-Waldo made any b) and even led us some taxonomic confusions at the revisional studies on the Ropalidia fauna in New species level (for examples, see the relationships among Guinea nor provided even a list of species recorded in R. semihyalinata, R. novaeguineae and R. novaeguineae New Guinea by their times. insolens). Second, some of the late van der Vecht’s Bequaert (1932) described Ropalidia leopoldi from conclusions were based on the examination of the types Angi-Kita in northwestern New Guinea, and listed 37 housed in the museums and institutions in Europe that species, nearly all the species that had been described he made in 1933 and 1934 (see van der Vecht, 1934, from New Guinea. However, he did not make any 1941a); several new taxa have been described since detailed taxonomic comparisons. Van der Vecht (1934) then. Third and the most important, the recent studied the types of Cameron’s species and concluded development and sophistication of the phylogenetic that 11 “species” were not valid, and he (1941b) made a species concept led me to concur that subspecies have brief note on the New Guinean Ropalidia. He also no place in a phylogenetic system and that diagnosable treated six species or subspecies from Papuan region in taxa are to be treated as species (Nelson and Platnick, his monographs on Malayan species of Ropalidia (van 1981; Nixon and Wheeler, 1990; Carpenter and Kojima, der Vecht, 1941a, 1962). Although Cheesman (1952) 1997). attempted to study thoroughly the Ropalidia fauna in The present paper, as the first part of a compre- New Guinea, with descriptions of 18 new taxa, her hensive taxonomic revision of the New Guinean work was based on only specimens that she herself Ropalidia, treats the results of the research on the type collected and those in the collections in the University materials of the previously described taxa, and gives a Museum, Oxford, and The Natural History Museum, taxonomic revision of the R. loriana-group. The London, and referred to only 14 of 37 species that remaining species will be treated in the second part of Bequaert (1932) listed. Richards (1978) described five this series, which will be published in the next issue of additional Ropalidia species from New Guinea in the the present bulletin. monograph of the Australian social wasps, and provided brief taxonomic notes on some New Guinean Materials species so far described. We have described further three species from New Guinea (Kojima, 1989; van der The present study is based mainly on the specimens Vecht and Kojima, 1996). Thus, as summarized above, housed in the Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum, the Ropalidia fauna in New Guinea and its adjacent Leiden (abbreviated as NNM), but also on those in the islands, one of the centers of divergence of this genus, following museums and institutions: has never been studied thoroughly. American Museum of Natural History, New York It had been the intension of the late Prof. Dr. J. van (AMNH); der Vecht “to discuss the species of this area in a future Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO, paper” (van der Vecht, 1962: 4). I started, jointly with Canberra (ANIC); him, the taxonomic study of the New Guinean Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu (BISH); Ropalidia nearly 20 years ago. However, the study was California Academy of Science, San Francisco interrupted half way through due to his illness and death (CAS); (in 1992) (see van Achterberg, 1992). Recently I had Hope Entomological Collection, University Mu- several opportunities to visit the Nationaal Natuur- seum, Oxford (OUM); historisch Museum, Leiden, including one-year stay at Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, the museum in 1996, and reexamined a large part of the Brussels (IRSNB); materials that we studied before. Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard Uni- At the beginning of the preparation of this versity, Cambridge, Massachusetts (MCZ); taxonomic revision, I intended to publish it as a joint Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Genève (MHN); paper with the late van der Vecht. However, I decided Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris later to take responsibility for all the nomenclatural (MNHN); changes, because many conclusions presented here are Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, Bogor (MZB); very different from those on which we agreed before Natural History Laboratory, Ibaraki University, and/or the late van der Vecht reached. Most of these Mito (IUNH); discrepancies between my conclusions given in this The Natural History Museum, London (BMNH); paper and those we previously reached are due to the South Australian Museum, Adelaide (SAM); following three reasons. First, when we started this Zoölogisch Museum, Amsterdam (ZMA). Ropalidia of New Guinea 33 Fig. 1. Map of New Guinea and it adjacent islands, showing the four