4 Z. BOUCEK 



INTRODUCTION 



The Leucospids include most of the largest insects among Chalcidoidea, but in 

 spite of this our knowledge of them has been rather poor. The earlier history of the 

 group was well reviewed by Schletterer (1890), in his excellent monograph. The 

 most important contributions before him were a paper on the European species 

 by Klug (1814), another with descriptions of some species from north-east Africa 

 and Arabia (Klug, 1834), the two reviews of the world species by Westwood 

 (1834; I 839) and later a paper on the North American and Mexican species by 

 Cresson (1872). Most publications, especially the numerous descriptions by 

 Walker (1834-1871), did not include comparisons with the previously known species, 

 or any keys (exception: Cresson, 1872). Schletterer provided keys to the three 

 genera then included (two of them with only one and two species, respectively) and 

 in Leucospis to 36 species, whilst about the same number of further species were 

 quoted from the original descriptions. He studied all the types and material 

 available, mainly from various European museums (but not, for example, from 

 London and Paris), and aptly and critically reviewed the existing knowledge, 

 including the known biological data, and for the first time evaluated also the 

 variation in colour and structure. Partly as a result of this, he dropped many 

 names into synonymy, in most cases rightly so. 



Another three decades were reviewed by Weld (1922) in a similar way, although 

 to a much lesser extent, as the aim of her work was much more restricted. Against 

 Schletterer she had the advantage of a better knowledge of some American species, 

 the types of which she could examine. Working in the U.S. National Museum, 

 Washington, shortly after the first world war, she had, however, almost no contact 

 with Europe. Weld's work, although it must not be regarded as another revision, 

 is good, but many of her species also proved to be synonyms. 



The post-Schletterer authors mostly contributed in smaller papers, with single 

 or few descriptions or other information, but Ducke (1906), for example, revised 

 the Polistomorpha species. Later, particularly after Weld's work, a few local faunas 

 were worked out. Thus Berland (19346) revised the French species of Leucospis, 

 Mani (1937) the Indian species, Steffan (1948) treated the African Micrapion, 

 Nikolskaya (1952) keyed out the Leucospis of the U.S.S.R. and later on (i960) 

 treated them more comprehensively in the Fauna of U.S.S.R., Erdos (1955) keyed 

 out the Hungarian species, Boucek (1959) the West Palaearctic ones, Ceballos 

 (1959) the Spanish ones, Habu (1962) worked out comprehensively the two Japanese 

 species and Porter (1972) briefly the Floridan species. Of all the papers which 

 include valuable criticism, corrections and other information, perhaps the most 

 important is that of Masi (1935). Otherwise descriptions of the Australian species 

 were provided mainly by Girault, whilst those of the other parts of the world are 

 more scattered and are mentioned with the relevant taxa and more fully under 

 References. These include also some recent catalogues, viz. of the Indian species 

 (Mani, 1938), of the North American ones (Peck, 1963) and of the Argentinian 

 species (De Santis, 1967). 



The taxonomic aims of the present work have been mainly to reach a better 

 understanding of the existing (described or undescribed) taxonomic units of 



