Enicospilus combustus (Gravenhorst, 1829) Figure 13

Ophion combustus Gravenhorst, 1829: 701; type lost?

Specimens examined.

Total of 54 specimens (39♀♀14♂♂ and 1 unsexed): England (18♀♀2♂♂), Japan (19♀♀10♂♂ and 1 unsexed), Russia (1♂), unknown (2♀♀1♂).

Distribution.

Oriental and Palaearctic regions (Yu et al. 2016); this is a predominantly Palaearctic species that may be restricted to there, although Lee et al. (2011) reported this species from the Oriental region, probably based on a misidentification.

JAPAN: [ Hokkaidô] (Uchida 1928, 1935; present study); [ Honshû] (Uchida 1935; present study); [ Tôhoku] Aomori (Uchida 1928; present study), Yamagata*, and Fukushima (Uchida 1928; present study); [Hokuriku] Niigata (Uchida 1928; present study); [ Kantô-Kôshin] Tochigi (Uchida 1928; present study), Nagano*, and Tôkyô (Uchida 1928, 1930); [ Tôkai] Gifu (Uchida 1928); [Kinki] Kyôto * and Hyôgo *; [ Chûgoku] Hiroshima*; [Shikoku] (Uchida 1935); [ Kyûshû] (Uchida 1935), Fukuoka*. *New records.

Bionomics.

Reared from one species of Noctuidae in Japan: Trachea tokiensis (Butler, 1884) (Uchida 1928, 1930). Notodontid and noctuid moths are recorded as hosts, but reliable records are only from Noctuidae of the subfamily Hadeninae (e.g., Broad and Shaw 2016).

Differential diagnosis.

This species is usually very easily distinguished from all other Palaearctic Enicospilus species by the black mesosoma, thyridium, and posterior segments of metasoma, as in Fig. 13A. Enicospilus combustus has sometimes been confused with E. multidens stat. rev., E. ramidulus, and E. shikokuensis; moreover, some authors have treated E. combustus and E. ramidulus as a single species (e.g., Viktorov 1957; Townes et al. 1965; Gauld and Mitchell 1981). However, E. combustus is easily separated from E. shikokuensis by the separated proximal and distal sclerites of fore wing fenestra, as in Fig. 13F (proximal and distal sclerites usually obviously confluent in E. shikokuensis, as in Fig. 44F), from E. multidens stat. rev. and E. ramidulus by the entirely more or less blackish mesosoma, as in Fig. 13A, E (mesosoma entirely orange-brown in E. multidens stat. rev. and E. ramidulus, as in Figs 29A, E and 39A, E respectively). Moreover, this species is similar to E. sharkeyi sp. nov. in colour pattern (Figs 13, 43), however, E. combustus can be readily distinguished from it by many characters, such as separated proximal and distal sclerites of fore wing fenestra, as in Fig. 13F (proximal and distal sclerites confluent in E. sharkeyi sp. nov., as in Fig. 43F), larger central sclerite of fore wing fenestra, as in Fig. 13F (central sclerite smaller in E. sharkeyi sp. nov., as in Fig. 43F), wider lower face, as in Fig. 13B (narrower in E. sharkeyi sp. nov., as in Fig. 43B), etc.