INSECTA MUNDI A Journal of World Insect Systematics 0339 Checklist of medically important Hymenoptera of Afghanistan James C. Dunford Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center Detachment Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, GA, 30341 USA Joseph C. Turbyville Ireland Army Community Hospital Allergy-Immunology 851 Ireland Loop Fort Knox, KY 40121 USA John M. Leavengood, Jr. University of Kentucky Department of Entomology S-225 Agriculture Science Center Bldg. North Lexington, KY 40546 USA Date of Issue: January 31, 2014 CENTER FOR SYSTEMATIC ENTOMOLOGY, INC., Gainesville, FL James C. Dunford, Joseph C. Turbyville, and John M. Leavengood, Jr. Checklist of medically important Hymenoptera of Afghanistan Insecta Mundi 0339: 1-13 ZooBank Registered: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:563F9221-1110-45DC-9670-74B3AB373B63 Published in 2014 by Center for Systematic Entomology, Inc. P. O. 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Florida Virtual Campus: http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/insectamundi University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Digital Commons: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/insectamundi/ Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main: http://edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2010/14363/ Author instructions available on the Insecta Mundi page at: http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/insectamundi/ Copyright held by the author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Com- mons, Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/3.0/ 0339: 1–13 2014 Checklist of medically important Hymenoptera of Afghanistan James C. Dunford Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center Detachment Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, GA, 30341 USA [email protected] Joseph C. Turbyville Ireland Army Community Hospital Allergy-Immunology 851 Ireland Loop Fort Knox, KY 40121 USA John M. Leavengood, Jr. University of Kentucky Department of Entomology S-225 Agriculture Science Center Bldg. North Lexington, KY 40546 USA Abstract. A recent investigation was conducted to assess the threat of insect venom hypersensitivity to deployed U.S. service members operating in the region. In parallel with this study, a checklist of medically important Hymenoptera was assembled from limited fi eld collections as well as a comprehensive review of the literature and information provided by electronic databases. We compiled names of 14 families comprising 396 species of Hymenoptera capable of stinging humans. This is the fi rst such checklist for Afghanistan, and should aid future taxonomic work and provide reference information for public health-related entomology in this region. Introduction Afghanistan is a landlocked country located in south-central Asia with an area of approximately 650,000 square kilometers. It is dominated by the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain ranges in the north and arid desert to the south. Afghanistan is an entomologically understudied country but is undoubtedly rich in insect fauna due to its diversity of habitats. During a 2010 deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, a study was conducted to determine the prevalence of insect stings and venom hypersensitivity in military personnel operating in Afghanistan (Turbyville et al. 2013). Because of the rugged terrain, lack of readily accessible medical facilities, and political instability of the country, prompt medical attention is not always available to military personnel, international aid workers, and local nationals who may suffer severe allergic reactions to Hymenoptera venom. In order to initially assess this threat, we compiled a list of potentially medically important Hymenoptera (i.e., capable of sting/venom injection in humans) from limited fi eld collections and observations, as well as from a comprehensive review of relevant literature. We recorded the sociality of hymenopteran species known to occur in Afghanistan when reported in the literature; social taxa are capable of demonstrat- ing more aggressive behavior in Hymenoptera (Pankiw 2009). We did not assess the level of sociality (e.g., primitive or highly social) in social species, but those belonging to the apine bees, paper-nesting wasps, yellow-jackets, hornets, and ants can display highly social behaviors (Goulet and Huber 1993). This list should be considered preliminary, as additional Hymenoptera species of medical importance undoubtedly occur in Afghanistan. For example, ants exhibit intrageneric variation in the presence or absence of a produced sting and differentiation between sting-produced reactions and reactions from abdominally-secreted chemicals is ambiguous; therefore it was diffi cult to recognize stinging ants of medical importance in the literature. Klotz et al. (2005) reported many stinging ant genera of medical signifi cance, although not all species of these genera possess a sting. No attempt was made to compile 1 2 • INSECTA MUNDI 0339, January 2014 DUNFORD ET AL. names of Hymenoptera taxa without modifi ed ovipositors capable of stinging humans; however, ad- ditional taxa (e.g., sawfl ies, microhymenoptera) are reported in the literature for Afghanistan. Methods and Materials We collected Hymenoptera primarily by aerial-netting ad libitum on military installations in southern (near Kandahar City) and eastern (Bagram Air Field) Afghanistan from June 2010 through January 2011. Collected specimens were curated, photographed, and identifi ed to species if possible. Voucher specimens and photographic prints were deposited in the Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA), Division of Plant Industry (DPI), Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS). Logistical challenges prevented the authors from surveying outside of their respective areas of operation; thus, a literature review was also conducted to further identify stinging Hymenoptera species recorded in Afghanistan. For World Wide Web and specimen record database searches, we used various combinations of the following key words: Hymenoptera, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Middle East, Asia, bees, wasps, ants, hornets, checklist, distribution, and taxonomy. Supraspecifi c taxonomy in our checklist follows Goulet and Huber (1993) with the exception of the taxonomic placement of Crabronidae (Alexander 1992; see also Pulawski 2003), and Anthophoridae, which are now included within Apidae (Ascher and Pickering 2013). Superfamilies, families, and spe- cies are listed alphabetically and do not imply any phylogenetic relationships within or between these taxonomic divisions. Common names often associated with family level groupings (VanDyk and Belov 2013) are included in Table 1. Record type (i.e., collected, observed, or recorded in the literature), so- ciality, and literature references for species records are given after the species name and authority in Table 1. Sociality was gleaned from the literature but in some cases species-specifi c information could