Leptochilus subgen. Lionotulus Blüthgen, 1938

Fateryga, Alexander V., Proshchalykin, Maxim Yu., Mokrousov, Mikhail V. & Akhmedov, Askar G., 2023, To the knowledge of the solitary vespid wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Masarinae and Eumeninae s. l.) of Uzbekistan, Zootaxa 5278 (3), pp. 439-460 : 450

Leptochilus subgen. Lionotulus Blüthgen, 1938

Lionotulus Blüthgen, 1938a: 276 , subgenus of Leptochilus de Saussure, 1853 . Type species: Odynerus alpestris de Saussure, 1855 (by original designation).

Neoleptochilus Blüthgen, 1961: 100 , subgenus of Leptochilus de Saussure, 1853 . Type species: Odynerus medanae Gribodo, 1886 (by original designation), syn. nov.

Sarochilus Gusenleitner, 1970: 57 , subgenus of Leptochilus de Saussure, 1853 . Type species: Leptochilus alterego Gusenleitner, 1970 (by original designation), syn. nov.

Remarks. Kurzenko (1982) previously stated that the taxonomic independence of the subgenera Neoleptochilus and Sarochilus was poorly proofed.Both sclerotized apical lamella on tergum2 (the diagnostic character of Neoleptochilus ) and enlarged labial palpi with long setae (the diagnostic character of Sarochilus ) evolved independently in several lineages of the genus Leptochilus as homoplasies. Therefore, the subgenera Neoleptochilus and Sarochilus cannot be distinguished from their most closely related subgenus Lionotulus . Thus, these two subgenera are synonymized here. On the other hand, the subgenus Lionotulus could be further subdivided since some species currently treated within it merit rather their own subgenus, e.g., Leptochilus ambiguus (Kostylev, 1940) , Leptochilus argentifrons (Kostylev, 1935) , and Leptochilus kostylevi Kurzenko, 1979 ( Kurzenko 1982) . These three species have the metanotum rounded posteriorly while it is sharply edged posteriorly in other representatives of the genus. It is of note that all Nearctic species of Leptochilus are placed in one subgenus, Zendalia Robertson, 1928 ( Krombein 1979; Gusenleitner 1995) despite their high morphological and bionomical variability ( Parker 1966).