Epirhyssa Cresson, 1865

Khalaim, A. I., Ruíz-Cancino, E. & Coronado-Blanco, J. M., 2021, Darwin wasps (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) of Mexico: subfamily Rhyssinae, Russian Entomological Journal 30 (3), pp. 305-313 : 306

Genus Epirhyssa Cresson, 1865

Epirhyssa Cresson, 1865: 39 . Type species: Epirhyssa speciosa Cresson, 1865 , by subsequent designation [ Viereck, 1914: 52].

= Hierax Tosquinet, 1903 .

= Rhyssonota Kriechbaumer, 1890 .

= Sychnostigma Baltazar, 1961 .

REFERENCES. Cresson, 1865: 39 [2 species (both described as new) in Cuba]; Rohwer, 1920: 422 [description; key to 3 species described by Cresson]; Townes, Townes, 1960: 413 [description; 1 species in USA (Arizona)]; 1966: 38 [catalogue; 6 species in Neotropical region; 1 species in Mexico]; Townes, 1969: 141 [description; remarks]; Porter, 1978 [revision of 38 Neotropical species (25 described as new); key]; Carlson, 1979: 355 [catalogue; 1 species in America north of Mexico]; Gauld, 1991: 113 [description; review of 10 species (5 described as new) from Costa Rica; key]; Gauld, Wahl, 1997: 448 [addition to key; 2 new species from Costa Rica]; Ruíz-Cancino et al., 2002: 646 [checklist; 3 species in Mexico]; Graf, Kumagai, 2004 [1 new species from Brazil]; Gómez et al., 2015 [review of 24 species (10 described as new) from Peruvian Amazonia; key]; Varga, 2020 [1 new species from Kenya].

Epirhyssa is a large tropical genus with about 130 described species. Fifty five species are known in the New World, of them 12 occur in Costa Rica [ Gauld, 1991; Gauld, Wahl, 1997]. Only the one widely distributed species, E. mexicana Cresson, 1874 , is known from the Nearctic region (was recorded from Arizona, USA). Five species of Epirhyssa are found to occur in Mexico.

In China, species of the genus were recorded as parasitoids of wood-boring beetles and sawflies [ Sheng, Sun, 2010], but nothing is known about hosts of this genus in the New World. Porter [1978] observed females of Epirhyssa boring into dead trees, especially old and partially rotten trunks, and Gauld [1991] reported E. mexicana probing standing dead trees infested with cerambycid larvae in Costa Rica.