Cerceris ammonia Malash & Edmardash & Gadallah 2024, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Malash, Alyaa A.
name: Edmardash, Yusuf A.
name: Gadallah, Neveen S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Crabronidae
Cerceris
Cerceris ammonia

description: Cerceris ammonia sp. nov.
Figs 2 (A-D), 3(A-C), 4(A-C)
Type material: Egypt: Holotype (♀): Marsa Matruh [31 ○ 21′34′′N 27 ○ 14′3′′E], 10.v.1930, H.C.E. & M. T. collectors [EFC].
Description of female holotype: body length: female: 18 mm, forewing length: 10 mm.
Coloration (Fig. 2 A-C): Body partly black, the following parts partly reddish brown: lateral side of head extending from end of eye posteriorly; scape, pedicel, F1-4, base of F5; broad area along inner margins of eyes (brighter), median carina (above clypeus), clypeus (except black apical lamella); mandible darker with black tip, all legs, posterolateral part of pronotum; almost all gaster; with lateral indistinct blackening on T 3-8; pygidial plate black, surrounded with dark red; forewing somewhat infumate, distinctly dark at marginal cell and apex after third submarginal cell and marginal cell, pterostigma dark brown, ocelli reddish.
Head (Figs 2 A-D, 3A, B): densely punctate among reddish area; punctures confluent on face, on disc of clypeus and supraclypeal area; head posteriorly with dense fine punctures, separated by less than puncture diameter, with fine erect, pale setae; gena angulate posteriorly. Free margin of clypeal middle lobe of female broadly, shallowly emarginate, lateral lobe of clypeus distinctly separated from middle lobe, sparsely punctate. Ocellar triangle with base distinctly longer than lateral side; mandible stout, smooth and shiny, with an inner indistinct tooth, interantennal bases with sharp carina, not reaching anterior ocellus. Scape relatively long, concave ventrally, 1.57× as long as F1.
Thorax (Figs 2A, B, 3A, B, 4A): pronotum and scutum densely punctate, punctures sparser on scutellum, with smooth interspaces, more than a puncture diameter apart; metanotum sparsely punctate.Propodeal enclosure with coarse longitudinal ridges, lateral side densely, coarsely punctate; upper mesopleuron densely foveolate, with indistinct tooth that is hardly seen from foveolation, with fine, pale erect to semi-erect setae, lower mesopleuron (at junction with metapleuron) transversely ridged. Metapleuron coarsely rugose, foveolate; inner margin of hindcoxa with distinct carina along its entire length.
Gaster (Figs 3C, 4B, C): T 1 with hardly seen postero-median pit, not protruding laterally; densely punctate; pygidial plate long, slightly widened at base, rounded apically, rugose or wrinkled and dull; S 2 with smooth, not delimited elevation at base, S 3 & S 4 sparsely punctate, S 5 with a preapical elevated lamella, with broad lateral processes enclosing a deep area (horseshoe).
Male: unknown.
Etymology: The name ammonia derives from the Greek “Ἀμμωνία, Ammônía ”, the name of Marsa Matruh (where the holotype of the new species was collected) during the hellenistic era of Egypt.
Distribution: PA: Egypt (present study).
Comments. The new species belongs to C. bupresticida group for the following combination of characters: propodeal enclosure impunctate, ridged; female S 5 with a projecting lamella; S 2 without clearly defined basal platform. It does not agree with any of the Egyptian species in Mochi’s key (1938), or the Arabian species in Guichard’s key (1993), or those of the Ethiopian region (Arnold 1931), as well as Empey’s descriptions or figures of the South and Central African species (1972) or of the Socotran species (1973). In EFC collection, it was identified as C. döderleinii Mochi (in a tied label under the specimen) and as C. sulcipyga Mochi (= tyrannica) (on a label in the box underneath the specimen). It differs, however, from C. doederleinii (C. eucharis group) in being a member of the C. bupresticida species-group, and by having the pygidial plate long and narrow, with base slightly broader than its rounded apex, wrinkled to rugose (distinctly triangular in doederleini); in addition, free margin of clypeal middle lobe is deeply emarginate at apex medially (free margin of clypeal middle lobe is arc-like between lateral teeth in doederleini, see Schmidt 2000: 239, fig. 265). It differs from C. tyrannica (C. chlorotica group) by its rugose pygidial plate (coarsely, longitudinally ridged in C. tyrannica), and the clypeus of the new species (Fig. 2C, D) completely different from that of C. tyrannica (see Schmidt 2000: 238, fig. 242).
description: Published as part of Malash, Alyaa A., Edmardash, Yusuf A. & Gadallah, Neveen S., 2024, A revision of bupresticida species group of Cerceris Latreille, 1802 (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae: Philanthinae) of the Western Palearctic region, with the description of Cerceris ammonia, a new species from Egypt, pp. 1-28 in Zootaxa 5448 (1) on pages 4-5, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5448.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/11231152