A checklist of Platygastridae and Scelionidae (Hymenoptera, Platygastroidea) of Iran

Abstract

Iranian species of the superfamily Platygastroidea (Hymenoptera) belonging to two families Platygastridae, (12 genera, 35 species) and Scelionidae (13 genera, 46 species), are reviewed. The recorded platygastroid species from Iran represent a very small assemblage of the world fauna, and certainly not the complete list from Iran. Except for a few recently described species, the others are found in many other countries as well. The known distribution for 27 species (77.1%) of Platygastridae of Iran is restricted to the Palaearctic region, while a smaller percentage was found in the Afrotropical (14.3%) and Nearctic (8.6%) regions. The distributions of 77.8% of Iranian scelionids are strictly Palaearctic, while the remaining scelionids were found also in the Nearctic (11.1%), Oriental (11.1%), Afrotropical (8.9%), Australasian (2.2%) and Neotropic regions (2.2%). Considering the sporadic treatment of platygastroids in Iran, it is evident that major parts of the country, including the eastern third, remain unexplored.

A preliminary survey of hymenopteran fauna of Iranian mangrove ecosystem, northern part of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea

“…In recent years, 10 species are reported for the first time from mangroves in the south of Iran; Concerning diverse climatic conditions and many unexplored areas such as Sistan and Baluchestan province, in Iran, we expect that the Hymenoptera fauna of the mangrove ecosystem of Iran will be substantially increased by further investigations. Iran is located in the Western Palaearctic region, with some influences from the Afrotropical and Oriental regions, particularly evident in the southern regions of Iran (Ghafouri Moghaddam et al, 2019;Derafshan et al, 2021;Minab et al, 2023). Coccygidium transcaspicum was reported from India (belonging to the Oriental zoogeographical region.…”

Temperature-dependent parasitism model of Trissolcus grandis Thompson (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae)

“…Egg parasitoids (Scelionidae) are important natural enemies of sunn pests. Much of the initial studies on sunn pest egg parasitoids were done in Iran (Alexandrov, 1947;Safavi, 1968;Rakhshani et al, 2008;Minab et al, 2023) and Morocco (Delucchi, 1961), and attempts were made to introduce some species from North Africa to the former USSR (Shapiro et al, 1975). However, these early attempts were barely enough to achieve Journal of Entomological Society of Iran 2023  43 (2) successful biological control.…”