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TaxonomyBrowse
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Genus Colpa

Myzinum quinquecinctum female? - Colpa octomaculata - female #4 Sexual Behavior of - Colpa octomaculata - male wasp like on Mexican Hat - Colpa octomaculata - male Wasp - Crioscolia? - Colpa alcione - male Beautiful Tucson wasp - Colpa octomaculata - female Scoliidae - Colpa alcione Eight-spotted Scoliid Wasp - Colpa octomaculata Sand Wasp - Colpa alcione - male
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)
No Taxon (Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps)
Superfamily Scolioidea
Family Scoliidae (Scoliid Wasps)
Genus Colpa
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
Trielis Saussure 1863 (synonymized by Day et al. 1981). Argaman (1996) treated Colpa and Trielis as separate genera. Osten (2005) further treated Crioscolia as a subgenus of Colpa.(1) Khouri et al. (2022) maintained Osten's treatment but excluded Colpa from Campsomerini.(2)

Colpa Dufour, 1841
=Crioscolia Bradley, 1951
=Trielis Saussure, 1863
Explanation of Names
Colpa Dufour, 1841
= likely from the Latin culpa and Proto-Italic kʷolpā ('wrong, mistake, blame, erratum')
Numbers
4 spp. in our area:(3)(4)
1. Colpa (Colpa) octomaculata (Say, 1823) - with 3 sspp.
2. Colpa (Colpa) pollenifera (Viereck, 1906)
3. Colpa (Crioscolia) alcione (Banks, 1917)
4. Colpa (Crioscolia) flammicoma (Bradley, 1928)
Identification

Wing venation with 3 submarginal cells and 2 recurrent veins.

Overview of species
Keys to this genus in North America by Bradley (1928) and Ramírez Guillén et al. (2022)(4).

Colpa (Colpa): female interantennal space less strongly elevated, male with flagellum not modified


Colpa (Colpa) octomaculata: scutellum without median sulcus in both sexes, ground color of at least head of female red in western subspecies (black in the eastern subspecies, C. o. hermione)


Colpa (Colpa) pollenifera: scutellum with median sulcus in both sexes, ground color of head and thorax black and of abdomen red, wings conspicuously violaceous

Colpa (Crioscolia): female interantennal space forming a strongly elevated platform and scutellum with median sulcus, male with proximal part of flagellum conspicuously narrower than distal part and scutellum without median sulcus


Colpa (Crioscolia) alcione: ground color of all tagmata black with yellow markings


Colpa (Crioscolia) flammicoma: ground color of all tagmata red with yellow markings
Range
Transcontinental over most of our covered area south of about 42°N latitude.
Print References
Argaman, Q. (1996) Generic synopsis of Scoliidae (Hymenoptera, Scolioidea). Annales Historico-Naturales Musei Nationalis Hungarici, 88: 171–222.
Bradley, J.C. (1928) A revision of the New World species of Trielis a subgenus of Campsomeris (Hymenoptera: Scoliidae). Transactions of the American Entomological Society, 54: 195–214 + plate 22. (Full Text)
Day, M.C., Else, G.R., & Morgan, D. (1981) The most primitive Scoliidae (Hymenoptera). Journal of Natural History, 15: 671–684.
Works Cited
1.Checkliste der Dolchwespen der Welt (Insecta: Hymenoptera, Scoliidae)
von Till Osten. 2005. Bericht der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft Augsburg, 62: 1–62.
2.The evolutionary history of mammoth wasps (Hymenoptera: Scoliidae)
Ziad Khouri, Jessica .P. Gillung, & Lynn S. Kimsey. 2022. bioRxiv preprint.
3.Catalog of Hymenoptera in America North of Mexico
Karl V. Krombein, Paul D. Hurd, Jr., David R. Smith, and B. D. Burks. 1979. Smithsonian Institution Press.
4.The Scoliidae wasps (Hymenoptera: Scolioidea) of Mexico: taxonomy and biogeography
Luis Damián Ramírez Guillén, Armando Falcon-Brindis, & Benigno Gómez. 2022. Zootaxa, 5214(1):47-88.