page_title: Pompilus cinereus
section_title: Variability
hierarchical_section_title: Pompilus cinereus / Variability
caption_attribution_description: English: Male of Pompilus cinereus. Bogliasco, Genova, Italy
context_page_description: Pompilus cinereus, the leaden spider wasp is the most widespread species of the Pompilus spider wasps, and throughout a large proportion of its wide distribution is the only species of Pompilus. It is the type species of the genus Pompilus and therefore of the family Pompilidae.
context_section_description: P. cinereus is a highly variable species throughout its wide range, giving rise to the large number of synonyms which have been attached to the species by different authors.  Where it overlaps with congeners in southern and central Africa and in southern Asia, the phenotype is stable and it can be distinguished from the species with which it is sympatric.  Over the rest of its huge range, it has no sympatric congeners and shows wide phenotypic variation.
   For example, in western Europe, the females in north-western populations are predominantly black, pubescent dorsally with narrow transverse strips of grey at the rear of each tergum, interrupted medially. The face is dark above the antennae and grey below. Some of the specimens taken in Gotland, Sweden, are black with dark brown pubescence posteriorly on the abdomen, or with a little grey on that of others; these specimens are the basis of the 'subspecies' P. plumbeus gotlandicus Wolf. In northern Iberia, a dark form which is nearly identical with the form found around the North Sea and Baltic littoral is found, but with the face narrower above. In southern Portugal, individuals that are almost entirely black and were named as the subspecies P. c. lusitanicus are found and these are found in sympatry with more normally grey individuals previously regarded as P. c. plumbeus which is the characteristic form of south-east Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean.  This type of phenotypic variability is found throughout the species range.  Day (1981) treats P. cinereus as a monotypic species despite this wide variation across its range.
caption: Male of Pompilus cinereus
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