﻿An overview of the Leucospidae (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) of the Arabian Peninsula with description of a new species

﻿Abstract An overview of the family Leucospidae (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) is provided for the leucospid fauna of the Arabian Peninsula. Two genera containing four species are identified based on morphometrics and colour patterns. One species, Leucospisayezae Usman, Anwar & Ahmad, sp. nov., is described. Leucospiselegans Klug had been previously recorded from Arabia Felix (= Yemen) and is recorded here for the first time from Saudi Arabia. The status of Leucospisaff.namibica from Yemen has been clarified, and this species is placed here in the genus Micrapion Kriechbaumer as M.clavaforme Steffan. An updated key and a map showing the distribution of the family Leucospidae in the Arabian Peninsula is provided. The occurrence and color morphs of all leucospid species that have been recorded so far from the region are briefly discussed.


Introduction
Members of the family Leucospidae (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) are large chalcid wasps (6-15 mm) and develop as ectoparasitoids on aculeate wasps or bees (Lima and Dias 2018).They are mostly dark brown, red, or yellow, with a patterned, orange or white body, metafemur enlarged with teeth, and strongly curved metatibia.Females typically have a recurved ovipositor which lies along the dorsal side of the metasoma.Leucospids are cosmopolitan in their distribution but rarely encountered, and there are 144 described species worldwide which belong to four genera (Noyes 2019).
Schmid-Egger (2010) tentatively identified two specimens of Leucospis as L. aff.namibica.On close examination of his figure (Schmid-Egger 2010: 321, pl. 3), there is no doubt that the specimens are not a Leucospis but Micrapion clavaforme Steffan instead.Some other important works on the Leucospidae from the Middle East were provided by Hesami et al. (2005), Lotfalizadeh and Fakhrzadeh (2012), Madl and Schwarz (2014), and Kareem et al. (2020).Schmid-Egger (2010) provided a key to four species of from the UAE and Yemen, and Gadallah et al. (2018) keyed five species of Leucospidae (one Micrapion Kriechbaumer species and four Leucospis species) from Saudi Arabia.
Here we describe a new species of Leucospis from Jazan, Saudi Arabia, and also report on some of the known Leucospis and Micrapion species.Diagnoses and illustrations of types are provided for two of them, L. insularis and L. africana.An extended and modified version of map (Fig. 1) and the key given by Schmid-Egger (2010) and Gadallah et al. (2018) is also provided to place our newly described species.All species treated herein are fully illustrated.

Methods
The study is based on the materials collected from three provinces of Saudi Arabia, Asir, Najran, and Jazan (Table 1).The specimens were collected mainly by one of two methods, either by sweep net (SN) or in a Malaise trap (MT).The collected specimens were primarily stored in 80% ethanol and were later mounted on rectangular cards.For each species, one pair of wings were removed and mounted on a slide.For the new species, Leucospis ayzae, the head and a hind leg was removed and mounted on the same card while one antenna was mounted on slide by following the methods described by Noyes (1982) with modifications as mentioned by Anwar et al. (2020).Photographs of card-mounted specimens were taken using a Nikon SMZ 1000 stereozoom binocular microscope.Figs 3B, 5B, 8C, D were taken using a video camera and Synaptics Automontage software to produce a montage image of the species.Photographs of the slide-mounted parts were taken with a Leica DFC295 digital camera attached to a Leica DM 2500 compound microscope with automountage facility.The final figures were prepared using Adobe Photoshop v. 7.0.
Measurements were made with the use of an ocular micrometer attached to the eyepiece of the microscope and were later converted into micrometers (µm).All the determined and type materials were deposited at the Insect Collections Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.
The terms mentioned in the text follow Bouček (1974) and Lima and Dias (2018).
List of abbreviations used in the text:

Results
Four species, including one new species, are among the materials examined.These belong to one of two genera, either Leucospis or Micrapion.The family Leucopsidae has seven species in total known from the Arabian Peninsula, and all seven species are keyed below.

An updated key to females of Leucospidae from the Arabian Peninsula
Modified from Schmid-Egger 2010 and Gadallah et al. 2018.
Clypeus curved convexly at posterior margin and without a median tooth; mandibles thin, setose, and notched at apex; gaster distinctly clavate,   Diagnosis.The new species is similar to L. insularis in having a yellow band on the pronotum and scutellum and distinct discal, preapical, and marginal carinae, but the new species differs from L. insularis as follows: discal carina on pronotum strong and angulate (discal carina on pronotum weak and straight in L. insularis); metafemora oval with eight ventral teeth, basal tooth triangular and robust (metafemora slender with nine ventral teeth, basal tooth angular and pointed in L. insularis); pubescence on sides of propodeum and metatibia relatively short and less dense (pubescence on sides of propodeum and metatibia long and more dense in L. insularis) ovipositor hardly reaching posterior margin of GT4 (ovipositor distinctly reaching beyond posterior margin of GT1 in L. insularis).
Description.Colour (Figs 2A, 3).Head dark brown; maxillary and labial palps yellowish brown; antenna dark brown except scape with posterior margin yellow.Mesosoma dark brown except a yellow transverse strip in front of discal carina, not continuing to sides of pronotum, and a narrow, transverse yellow strip on scutellum just above apex.Gaster largely reddish to dark brown, with transverse yellow strips medially on GT4 and apically on GT5.Basal two-thirds of ovipositor reddish brown; the rest dark brown.Pro-and mesofemur brown, with yellow tips where joining tibia; pro-and mesotibia reddish brown, with their margins yellow; hind legs dark brown except apex of coxa in ventral view and margins of femur yellow; all tarsi yellow.Fore wing below PMV and in apical half strongly infuscate, the rest hyaline.
Metasoma (Fig. 3A, C).Gaster moderately punctuate, with dense, pale setae; density of setae more at epipygium.GT1 wider than long, interiorly with triangular process attached to petiole and, medially with a raised carina, narrower than GT4 in dorsal view; GT4 with posterior margin entire; ovipositor sheaths long, nearly reaching anterior margin of GT3.
Etymology.The species name after Ayeza Tarique, daughter of the authors SUU and PTA.
Remarks.The examined specimens were collected from the type locality and differ from the holotype in size.The females were 5-15 mm long and males 2-10 mm long.In both sexes, the size of the yellow patch on the metafemur varies minute to broad.
Host.Unknown.Distribution.Saudi Arabia: Jazan (Farasan Islands) and Egypt (Sinai Peninsula).Remarks.This is the first record of L. elegans from Saudi Arabia.However, Bouček (1974) included it in the fauna of Saudi Arabia but referred to Arabia Felix, which is a former name for Yemen.He briefly provided a diagnosis of L. elegans and described the male for the first time.
Remarks.Bouček (1974) recorded L. africana from several African countries and provided a brief diagnosis of females and described the males.He further recorded its host for the first time.Gadallah at al. (2018) recorded males from Saudi Arabia and provided a detailed diagnosis of males and a key identify it from other species of Saudi Arabia.Here, we figure the lectotype for the first time.
Remarks.Leucospis insularis is only known from the type locality Socotra Islands (Yemen).Bouček (1974)    Remarks.Females and males were collected in the present study from two sites in Saudi Arabia.They agree fairly well with the original description of M. clavaforme and the diagnoses by Bouček (1974) and Gadallah et al. (2018).In both sexes there are two colour morphs, one brown with ivory stripes and another reddish brown with yellow stripes.All specimens, however, exhibit almost no variation in stripe patterns and wing infuscation.
Schmid-Egger (2010) tentatively identified two Leucospis specimens from Yemen as L. aff.namibica.On close examination of his figure (Schmid-Egger 2010: 321, pl. 3) there is no doubt that these specimens are not a Leucospis species but Micrapion Kriechbaumer instead.Here, these specimens are re-identified as M. clavaforme.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Distribution map of leucospid species in the Arabian Peninsula.

Figure 9 .
Figure 9. Micrapion clavaforme Steffan, habitus, lateral view A, B dark brown-pale yellow morph A female B male C, D reddish brown-yellow morph C female D male.