Revision of Taiwanese and Ryukyuan species of Pristepyris Kieffer, 1905, with description of a new species (Hymenoptera, Bethylidae)

Abstract

The pristocerine genus Pristepyris comprises 38 valid species recorded worldwide, except in the Australian Region. Of them, three species, namely P. mieae (Terayama, 1995), P. tainanensis (Terayama, 1995) and P. takasago (Terayama, 1996), have been recorded from Taiwan and three species, i.e. P. ishigakiensis (Yasumatsu, 1955), P. minutus (Yasumatsu, 1955) and P. ryukyuensis (Terayama, 1999), from the Ryukyus in Japan. In the present study, the species-level classification of both Taiwanese and Ryukyuan species of Pristepyris was revised using newly-collected specimens by the external and male genital morphological as well as molecular phylogenetic analysis. Overall, six species of Pristepyris were recorded from Taiwan and the Ryukyus. Among these, five were previously recorded for the region and were revised here: P. ishigakiensis, P. mieae, P. ryukyuensis, P. tainanensis and P. zhejiangensis. Additionally, a new species, P. seqalu sp. nov., is herein described and illustrated. Furthermore, the species P. minutus is transferred to Eleganesia and P. takasago is synonymized under P. minutus. Due to the new combination of Pristepyris minutus, a key to Taiwanese and Ryukyuan species of the genus Eleganesia, based on male morphology, is provided in Appendix 1. We confirmed for the first time the correspondence between the male and female species of P. zhejiangensis by molecular data. High compatibility in species delimitation patterns, suggested by the morphological and molecular phylogenetic approaches, highlighted the significance of the former approach for accurately classifying aged voucher specimens of Pristocerinae in public collections.