Hamuli The Newsletter of the International Society of Hymenopterists volume 4, issue 2 20 August 2013 In this issue... Revising Nematinae (STING) 1 ISH and that (Heraty) 1 Webmaster update (Seltmann) 6 News from the Albany Museum (Gess) 7 Challenges of large-scale taxonomy (Whitfield) 8 Hymenoptera Emporium (Sharkey) 9 Rearing Eois in Panama (Parks) 10 Relying on catalogues (Broad) 11 Wasps on the phone (Broad) 12 Hidden terrors (Heraty et al.) 14 Orasema: facts and request (Heraty) 15 Tiny hymys (Sharkey) 16 Fig. 1 Tenthredo arctica (Thomson, 1870) Abisko: Mt. Njullá above Neotropical hym course (Sharkey) 17 treeline (Sweden: Norrbottens Län); 900 m. 05.07.2012 I Encontro Internacional Sobre Vespas (Carpenter) 17 Small trick for lighting (Mikó) 18 Revising (half) the Nematinae What is fluorescing? (Mikó & Deans) 19 Hymenoptera at the Frost (Deans) 22 (Tenthredinidae) of the West Postgraduate corner (Kittel) 24 Palaearctic Paper wasps get official respect (Starr) 24 By: STI Nematinae Group (STING): Andrew D. Liston, Marko Membership information 25 Prous, Stephan M. Blank, Andreas Taeger, Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut, Müncheberg, Germany; Erik Heibo, Lierskogen, Norway; Hege Vårdal, Swedish Mu- seum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden. ISH and That The Swedish Taxonomy Initiative (STI) has set the goal By: John Heraty, University of California, Riverside, USA of documenting all the estimated 60,000 multicellular species in Sweden (Miller, 2005). One of the STI projects Since I began in this field, there were three things that which recently received funding from the Swedish govern- vastly changed how all of us (behaviorists and systematics) ment is “The Swedish Nematinae (Hymenoptera, Tenth- operate. It was not computers, planes or even yellow pan redinidae, except for Nematina)”. Duration of the project traps, because these were invented even before I was born. is three years (01.09.2012–31.08.2015). Andreas Taeger is I could throw in the internet, but that is too easy. I would the project leader and Marko Prous the main researcher. say that, for our science, the top three are handheld GPS Among the sawflies, taxonomy of Nematinae is arguably devices, digital cameras, and the portable document format the most problematic because of high species richness and (PDF). The first two allow us to document localities, image difficulties in identifying species limits. As a consequence, habitats and specimens, document behavior, and to quickly comparatively little attention has been paid to the group by exchange our data. Digital cameras of various forms allow symphytologists. The Nematinae comprises about 15% of us to digitize holotypes and labels and we can quickly STING continued— Heraty continued— 2 Hamuli volume 4, issue 2 20 August 2013 —STING continued —Heraty continued the Symphyta (or 20% of the Tenthredinidae), represented confirm our identifications with colleagues and experts. worldwide by about 1,200 species in 40 genera (Taeger et Lastly, the PDF puts the scientific literature in our pocket al., 2010). The project focuses on roughly half of the ca. (laptop or handheld phone). The PDF also allows us to 600 West Palaearctic nematine species, two thirds of which quickly format and produce newletters such as Hamuli. are known to occur or expected in Sweden. First objective This rapid communication between colleagues acceler- is to prepare a key to world genera of Nematinae, which ates our science. The journal over the past year moved to a is now nearly ready. This was originally planned as a key PDF-only format. The type of research papers and review to only West Palaearctic nematine genera, but we decided process have not changed much for the journal, but the to include the additional world genera because these accessibility of information increased dramatically. Hamuli are rather few. This key was written in cooperation with now offers us something else—rapid communication of Stefan Schmidt (Zoologische Staatssammlung München, relevant topics, travel stories (not really a journal responsi- Germany), Dave Smith (National Museum of Natural bility), and a quick overview of some emerging technolo- History, Smithsonian Institution, USA), Matti Viitasaari gies and techniques useful for our research. Hamuli is a and Veli Vikberg (Finland), Alexey Zinovjev (USA), free and easily delivered resource that now has an board of Tommi Nyman and Tobias Malm (University of Eastern three exceptional editors (Deans, Longair and Mikó). What Finland, Finland). One idea behind the key is to improve do we get with our ISH membership? We get communica- the generic classification of Nematinae to reflect results tion of ideas, techniques and a sense of community. Please of analysis of recent molecular sequence data gathered by remember to renew your membership (check your status Tommi Nyman (Nyman et al. 2006; 2010). The result is at http://members.hymenopterists.org/) and to encourage a significant reduction of genera (from about 40 to 29), a your colleagues and students to join ISH and become ac- decision reached in consensus between many specialists in tive participating members. tenthredinid taxonomy during workshops on Symphyta in Sincerely, 2012 and 2013. Taxonomic revisions of West Palaearctic genera will follow the generic key. Planned scope of these revisions, summarily, includes the rather species-poor, phylogenetically basal genera (Hoplocampa, Cladius, Stauronematus and others), together with Pristiphora and the gall-makers (accounting for about half of the ‘higher’ ISH President Nematinae). It seems likely that when these revisions are complete we may be in a position to offer an improved generic key. Taxonomic problems in the north European Nematinae are so numerous, that our objective of documenting the Have you renewed your fauna of Sweden must necessarily be coupled with revi- membership for 2013? Go to the sion of the groups concerned. To this end, we are study- Society website for more details! ing the type material of as many relevant nominal taxa as possible. Museum collections which are of major http://hymenopterists.org/ importance to us because of their sizeable holdings of nematine types are not only those at Stockholm and Lund STING continued — Hamuli (ISSN 2224-2791) is published by the International Society of Hymenopterists. Contact: Andrew R. Deans, Department of Entomology, Pennsylvania State University, 501 ASI Bldg, University Park, PA, 16802 USA. Fax: +1 814 865 3048 Ph: +1 814 865 1895 Email: [email protected] President: John Heraty <[email protected]> See last page for submission instructions. Deadline for the first issue is Treasurer: Craig Brabant <[email protected]> January 15, while the deadline for the second issue is July 15. Articles Secretary: Lars Krogmann <[email protected]> appearing herein should not be considered published for the purposes Webmaster/Archivist: Katja Seltmann <[email protected]> of zoological nomenclature. Editor, Hamuli: Andrew R. Deans <[email protected]> Associate Editors: Robert Longair, István Mikó find us on the Web: http://hymenopterists.org 20 August 2013 volume 4, issue 2 Hamuli 3 —STING continued in Sweden, but also for example the Finnish Museum of Natural History, Helsinki (thanks here to Pekka Malinen for help already given). In addition to sizeable holdings of still unidentified Swedish Nematinae in some museums, the Swedish Malaise Trap Project has loaned us all their available Symphyta material of about 20,000 specimens (thanks here particularly to Kajsa Glemhorn, Dave Karls- son and Pelle Magnusson of Station Linné, Öland). Ole Lønnve and Trond-Elling Barstad have also generously loaned us Nematinae collected in Sweden. In 2012 Veli Vikberg and Matti Viitasaari donated voucher specimens of many northern Nematinae species to the Senckenberg Fig. 3. Tenthredo sp. (arcuata group) Abisko National Park, E10 (Sweden: Deutsches Entomologisches Institut. Finally, our material Norrbottens Län); 390 m. 19.06.2012 requirements are augmented by specimens collected by the project workers during field excursions. In 2012 we visited immature stages of T. arctica. We found most adults (but Abisko, Swedish Lapland, and in 2013 collected at sites only a total of 7) at catkins of Salix lanata (Fig. 1). One on the island of Öland and in parts of Central and Southern specimen was collected dead from a snow patch, a phe- Sweden, notably the Härjedalen. Fieldwork gives the team nomenon noted for this species by Malaise in his paper members the chance of using their considerable experi- about sawflies of the Abisko area (Malaise, 1931). See- ence and knowledge of sawflies to undertake searches of ing live individuals was a great thrill, and the capture of particularly promising habitat types and individual plant the first one by Andreas was announced with “I’ve got it. species. We can go home now”. Fortunately, this was our last day in Abisko anyway. By contrast, T. aaliensis (Fig. 2) was locally abundant along parts of the embankment of the main road at Abisko (ca. 400 m a.s.l.), on or at least near Astragalus alpinus, one of its known hosts (as worked out by Veli Vikberg). In contrast to T. arctica, small, isolated, and more or less endangered populations of T. aaliensis occur in Central Europe. Also present at more or less the same times and places near patches of A. alpinus beside the main road were numerous individuals of a still unde- scribed Tenthredo species of the arcuata group (Fig. 3). Remarkably, for day after day at Abisko we found it easy Fig. 2. Tenthredo aaliensis (Strand, 1898), Abisko National Park, E10 to collect large numbers of a wide variety of sawflies, (Sweden: Norrbottens Län); 390 m. 19.06.2012 including many Nematinae, from scrub growing close to STING continued — Of course, we have also collected many non-nematine sawflies during our field excursions. Although not a prior- ity compared to the Nematinae, these specimens are being identified and the records databased at Müncheberg, so that they can soon be incorporated in the Swedish ‘Art- Databanken’ and thus made publicly available.