164 Z. BOUCEK 



Material examined. 



Type data given in synonymy. 



Philippines: Panaon Island, xii. 1915, 1 $ (Botcher) (MHN, Geneva). 



The G/G^4S-Group 



The group is discussed more fully elsewhere. In the Indo-Australian region it 

 is represented only by L. histrio Maindron and L. darjilingensis Mani. The latter 

 is close to L. intermedia Illiger which, together with L. gigas Fabricius, spreads 

 from the Mediterranean subregion into many West Asiatic countries. Both these 

 species are treated above (pp. 149-155). 



Leucospis histrio Maindron 



Leucospis histrio Maindron, 1878 : cxxx. 



The synonymy is given below under the relevant subspecific names. 



L. histrio is fairly variable in size and colour, but less apparently in morphological 

 characters. The females are 6-0-12-5 mm long, the males 6-10 mm. The colour 

 mostly follows the same pattern: the frons has always the yellow spots (like the 

 Mediterranean L. intermedia Illiger) and the only notable variation is due mainly 

 to the slight reduction in general of the yellow markings, which were described for 

 example by Schletterer (1890 : 246, under macrodon), by Weld (1922 : 23, under 

 ornatifrons) and by Mani (1935 : 243-244, indica and 245, meenakshiae) . One 

 Papuan female (Mt Lamington Distr.) has the yellow on gaster beyond the first 

 tergite reduced to tiny dorsal spots posteriorly on the fifth tergite (cf. also Brues, 

 1918 : 118-119, as L. macrodon). All these forms are regarded as belonging not only 

 to one species but cannot be split even on a subspecific level. The Australian 

 specimens, however, show at first glance a very broad yellow band just behind 

 middle of the gaster (on the fifth tergite in female, on the fourth tergite in male), 

 whilst the preceding tergite is all black or bears only small vestiges of a band. These 

 specimens also tend to rufinism on some parts of the head, thorax and legs, mainly 

 the hind margin of the pronotum and scutellum in front of the apical yellow band 

 are red. The latter specimens also show, at least those at my disposal, some 

 deviation in having usually a relatively broader face and relatively more convex 

 dorsal part of the epipygium in females, at the base of the sheaths. The lower 

 face in these Australian specimens (measured between inner eye margins and height 

 between lower edges of antennal toruli and the clypeal margin) is 1-51-1-65 times 

 as broad as high, but this partly overlaps with some specimens coming from various 

 countries ranging from India to the Solomons, in which these figures are 1 -46-1 -66. 

 Also some other characters vary slightly but give no support for separating the 

 populations on the specific level. For example the ovipositorial sheaths in some 

 females hardly reach the base of the gaster, in some others they reach the scutellum, 

 which, to some extent, is also due to the position of the mobile gastral segments. 



As to the colour I find another major deviation from the known variation only 



