REVISION OF LEUCOSPIDAE 



SM, Lawrence 



SMT, Dresden 



TM, Budapest 



TM, Pretoria 

 Townes 



UM, Oxford 



USNM 



UZM, Copenhagen 



Watsham 

 ZI, Leningrad 



ZM, Amsterdam 



ZS, Munich 

 ZSI, Calcutta 



Snow Entomological Museum, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 



Kansas, U.S.A. (Prof. C. D. Michener) 

 Staatliches Museum fur Tierkunde, Dresden, East Germany (Frau 



R. Eck) 

 Termeszettudomanyi Miizeum Allattara, Budapest, Hungary (Dr J. 



Papp, Prof. G. Szelenyi) 

 Transvaal Museum, Pretoria, South Africa (J. van Reenen) 

 H. & M. Townes Collection, American Entomological Institute, Ann 



Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. (Dr H. Townes) 

 Hope Department of Entomology, University Museum, Oxford, 



England 

 United States National Museum, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. (Dr P. D. 



Hurd) 

 Universitetets Zoologiske Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark (Dr B. 



Petersen) 

 Rev. A. Watsham, Salisbury, Rhodesia 

 Zoological Institute, Academy of Sciences of U.S.S.R., Leningrad, 



U.S.S.R. (Dr V. A. Trjapitzin) 

 Zoologisch Museum, now Instituut voor Taxonomische Zoologie, 



Amsterdam, Netherlands 

 Zoologische Staatssammlung, Munich, West Germany (E. Diller) 

 Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta, India (Dr A. P. Kapur) 



LEUCOSPIDAE Walker 



Leucopsidae Walker, 1834 : J 3- Type-genus: Leucopsis Dumeril (= Leitcospis Fabricius). 

 Leucospidae Walker; Haliday, 1839 : ii. [Justified emendation] 



Leucaspoidae Forster, 1856 : 18, 20. Type-genus: Leucaspis Burmeister (— Leitcospis Fabri- 

 cius) . 

 Leucospidinae Cameron, 1883 : 76. [Unjustified emendation.] 

 Leucospinae Walker; Howard, 1886 : 197. 

 Leucospididae Cameron; Brues & Melander, 1932 : 485. 



In the past both spellings Leucospidae and Leucospididae were used. As there 

 is no definite proof that the ending of the name Leucospis is derived from the 

 Greek aspis, aspidis or ops, opos (cf. Schletterer's comments, 1890 : 144), the 

 shorter form is preferred. 



The family-group name was first used by Walker (1834 : 13) as 'Leucopsidae' 

 (from the unjustified emendation of Leucospis to Leucopsis, see generic synonymy) 

 and the group was regarded for some time as a family (for example by Forster, 

 1856 :i8, 20) , but later on it was lowered to subfamily rank. A slight taxonomic 

 change was introduced by Ashmead (1899 : 247), who, while regarding the other 

 major groups of the Chalcidoidea as families, divided Chalcididae into two 

 subfamilies: Leucospidinae and Chalcidinae, thus stressing the similarity of the 

 two groups. The major groups of Chalcidoidea were treated again as subfamilies 

 by Schmiedeknecht (1909), who again levelled Leucospinae with them, although 

 he largely followed Ashmead. This status has been retained by the more recent 

 authors, except that most major groups, including the Leucospids, have been 

 regarded as families. The question of whether this is justified is partly outside the 

 scope of this paper, as it largely depends on the relative weighting of various 



