Promecilla André, 1902

Williams, Kevin A., Lelej, Arkady S., Okayasu, Juriya, Borkent, Christopher J., Malee, Rufeah, Thoawan, Kodeeyah & Thaochan, Narit, 2019, The female velvet ants (aka modkhong) of southern Thailand (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae), with a key to the genera of southeast Asia, Zootaxa 4602 (1), pp. 1-69 : 24

Genus 13. Promecilla André, 1902

Diagnosis. FEMALE. See the key above and Lelej (1995b). MALE. See Lelej (1985, 1995b).

Diversity and Distribution. There are 27 species recognized ( Bischoff 1920; Lelej 2002, 2005), including P. philippinensis Lelej, 2005 ( Fig. 12 ) from the Philippines and nearly half of these occurring in India.

Remarks. Some species, like P. decora were formerly included in Sinotilla . In most keys, Promecilla females are separated from Sinotilla because they lack a scutellar scale. This trait can be deceptively difficult to score because the scutellar scale size is variable in genera that do possess a scale (like Sinotilla ) and sometimes a confluence of puncture intervals can form an apparent scale in genera that shouldn’t possess one (like Promecilla ). In these cases, the best hope for accurate genus assignment is to discover the sex association, as males of Promecilla and Sinotilla differ in antennal and genitalic morphology, and the male of P. decora described by Pagden, clearly belongs to Promecilla . Discovery of new sex associations might lead to changes in the genus assignments proposed in this research, but that will facilitate more accurate genus limits and diagnoses for these wasps.

Figures

FIGURES 1–28. Mutillidae, dorsal habitus of females. Scale bars represent actual specimen length.