A new species and an updated checklist of the genus Spogostylum Macquart (Bombyliidae: Diptera) from Egypt

Abstract

Species of the genus Spogostylum are ectoparasitoids of solitary bees and wasps (order: Hymenoptera), Meloidae (order: Coleoptera), and immature stages of Pyralidae (order: Lepidoptera). Some species were also recorded as predators of egg pods of Acrididae (order: Orthoptera). Spogostylum niphasoides sp. nov. was collected from South Sinai, Egypt. It is described in the present study where it differs from closely related species in having all hairs and bristles mostly white, except some few hairs on outer side of pedicel, short spines on legs, and short hairs on costal margin of wing which are black. Also, antennae and legs mostly yellowish-brown, tibial spines short, about half the tibial width, and the male genitalia are obviously distinctive, having the aedeagal sheath with a broad and complicated tip, enclosing the aedeagal tip. An updated checklist of the Egyptian Spogostylum spp. is provided.

Effects of Climatic Change on Potential Distribution of Spogostylum ocyale (Diptera: Bombyliidae) in the Middle East Using Maxent Modelling

“…The distribution of S. ocyale is primarily restricted to warm arid and semiarid habitats [ 5 , 6 ], where it is a prominent member of the flower-visiting insect fauna [ 7 ]. It has been recorded and seems to be well represented throughout most Middle Eastern countries, as well as a few neighbouring countries, in both the Palaearctic (Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Palestine (West Bank) and Saudi Arabia) and Afrotropics (Oman, Somalia, southwestern Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen) [ 8 ].…”