CATALOG OF SPHECIDAE sensu
lato
(= Apoidea excluding Apidae)
compiled by
phone: (
*Available on the internet since September 2003*
Introduction
This catalog covers the
families Heterogynaidae, Ampulicidae, Sphecidae, and Crabronidae. In the XIXth
century, these wasps (except Heterogynaidae, added in 1969) were often combined with
other primarily ground-nesting Hymenoptera into a single group, Fossores (or Rapacia), now known to be artificial. In the XXth
century, they were usually treated as a single family Sphecidae,
following Taschenberg (1866), Fox (1894), Kohl’s (1897) generic revision, and
Bohart and Menke's (1976) authoritative
treatment. Some authors, from Ashmead
(1899) to Finnamore (1993), treated them as a superfamily and raised sphecid
subfamilies to families. A frequently used argument was that sphecids were
equal in rank to bees (Apoidea) and thus also must be a superfamily
(Sphecoidea). A good overview of the differing opinions of treating Sphecidae
as one family or several was provided by Menke and Fernández (1996) and
The close relationship of bees and sphecids was recognized early by H. Müller (1872), and Handlirsch (1908) proposed Sphegiformia (properly Sphecoidea) to include both Sphecidae and Apidae, essentially treating them as sister groups. This classification has been strongly supported by Michener (1944), Brothers (1975), Bohart and Menke (1976), and Königsmann (1978), who all recognized one superfamily Sphecoidea (in contrast to other workers who accepted Sphecoidea and Apoidea). Michener (1986), however, showed that the name Apoidea has priority over Sphecoidea. Modern authors who treated sphecids and bees as sister taxa were Brothers and Carpenter (1993) and Finnamore (1993), among others.
Classification changed with the
advent of cladistics. Lomholdt (1982), Alexander (1992), M. Prentice
(1998, unpublished doctoral thesis), Brothers (1999), and
About this Catalog
The catalog’s main objective is to allow quick orientation in the vast body of the available literature on the four included families. The specific goals are:
1. to list all the valid names since Linnaeus (1758) and up to date, for both extant and fossil taxa (family-group, genus-group, and species-group names).
2. to list all the invalid and unavailable names (including junior synonyms, junior homonyms, and nomina nuda) for the same time period.
3. to provide information, for each nominotypical species, about the types status and sex, type locality, and depository.
4. to provide information about the actions affecting nomenclature (authorship of synonymies, lectotype or neotype designations).
5. to provide, for each species-group name, references to all subsequent publications with short information about the respective paper’s content. This goal has been achieved only partially, but new data are being constantly added, both retrospectively and prospectively. The publications already cataloged are preceded by an asterisk (*) in the Bibliography. The missing data are expected to be gradually filled in the future. Many of the existing gaps are indicated by an ellipsis (…). A number of references not included here can be found in Dalla Torre’s (1897) catalog.
Comments about the catalog, especially corrections
of errors and omissions, would be greatly appreciated.
Full bibliographic references are given in the
Bibliography section.
Acknowledgments. – I
sincerely thank the following individuals who helped correct errors in the
Catalog: