Euura atra (Jurine, 1807) : Westwood, 1839

Liston, Andrew D., Heibo, Erik, Prous, Marko, Vårdal, Hege, Nyman, Tommi & Vikberg, Veli, 2017, North European gall-inducing Euura sawflies (Hymenoptera, Tenthredinidae, Nematinae), Zootaxa 4302 (1), pp. 1-115 : 57

atra subgroup

Currently available data indicate that most species in this subgroup are not identifiable using COI barcodes. Specimens of E. auritae ( Finland) , E. elaeagnos ( Austria) , E. myrtilloides ( Finland) , S. salicispurpureae ( Austria) , and E. weiffenbachiella ( Russia) , share highly similar COI barcodes. On the other hand, a significant divergence, of about 3%, exists between the barcodes of these five taxa and five German and Finnish E. atra specimens (nearly identical with each other). Roininen et al. (1993b) studied Finnish populations from five willow species, using oviposition experiments, and analysis of allozyme differentiation. They concluded that these comprise three distinct lineages, equivalent to E. atra ( S. alba , S. × fragilis ), E. weiffenbachiella ( S. rosmarinifolia ), and E. auritae [= E. salicislapponicae ] ( S. cinerea and S. lapponum ). We did not detect the supposed interspecific differences in the degree of curvature of the lancet used by Kopelke (1996, 2006) to distinguish nominal species in this subgroup. Furthermore, the number of annuli was found to be more variable within a segregate, and similar between the segregates, than given in these papers. In our opinion, neither of these characters is useful for identification. Similarly, morphology of the penis valve is very uniform throughout the subgroup. We do not consider the minute differences in the shape of the distal lobe of the paravalva illustrated by Kopelke (1996) to be of taxonomic significance.