Epyris amazonicus Westwood. Subsequent 1874
Creators: name: Barbosa, Diego N.
name: Azevedo, Celso O.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Bethylidae
Epyris
Epyris amazonicus

description: amazonicus species-group
(Figs 6D–L, 7, 8, 9A–F)
Females. Mandible with four distal teeth, equally or differently sized, and with base wider than base; clypeus short; antennal scrobe carinate; frontal angle of ocellar triangle acute or about right; ocelli small; vertex straight or convex. Pronotal disc with transverse carina incomplete; parapsidal signum with anterior half continuous; anterior margin of propodeal declivity not setose; mesopleuron with lower mesopleural fovea opened, mesopleural suture opened, and posterior mesopleural sulcus absent. Forewing with R1 vein distinct. Mesotibia spinose. Metatrochanter with lateral expansion. Metasoma with spiracle large and posterior hypopygeal margin projected convex. Genitalia with 2vv as long as 1vv, and apex slender; sting (1vv+2vv) mainly short [surpassing 3vv apex]; 1vf strongly curved upward; 1rv curved, with 1rv ventral process large, and posterior process short.
Males. Frons coriaceous, with metallic reflexion. Clypeus long; median clypeal carina as high as epistomal suture, in lateral view; antenna elongate; antennal scrobe carinate. Pronotal disc with transverse carina incomplete. Metapostnotum with first pair of metapostnotal carina and metapostnotal-propodeal suture convergence absent; propodeal declivity sculptured. Mesopleuron with lower mesopleural fovea and mesopleural suture opened or closed. Forewing with Cu vein distinct of cu-a and R-rs&Rs vein distinct. Hind wing with one or two proximal and five distal hamuli. Posterior hypopygeal margin notched. Genitalia with paramere longer than basiparamere; inner margin of basivolsella excavated.
Distribution. Mostly from the Neotropical region
Remarks: The species-groups amazonicus and excisus were easily separated from other groups by having the “mandibles with four distal teeth”. Then “mandible development” was used to differentiate these two groups; according to Evans (1966), the teeth were “equally-sized” in amazonicus and “different sized” in excisus. Based on the other diagnostic characteristics, amazonicus have: the antennal scrobe carina present; the transverse pronotal carina incomplete or complete; and the mesopleuron with the lower fovea usually closed, but sometimes opened, whereas excisus were defined by the same characteristics, but the antennal scrobe carina was considered “strong” and the mesopleuron had the lower fovea opened in all species.
From our revision, we observed that these former characteristics were present in species that compose both of these species-group; we were not able to distinguish the species using these former characteristics. Therefore, we here fuse both of these species-groups under the name amazonicus, and reallocate some other species that had the afore-mentioned diagnostic traits to this species-group. This species-group is now composed of 23 species (Table 1).
description: Published as part of Barbosa, Diego N. & Azevedo, Celso O., 2018, Revision of Anisepyris Kieffer (Hymenoptera, Bethylidae), with description of 135 new species, pp. 1-258 in Zootaxa 4416 (1) on page 36, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4416.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/1242263