Vespula

Carpenter, James M., Dvořák, Libor, Kojima, Jun-Ichi, Nguyen, Lien T. P., Perrard, Adrien & Pickett, Kurt M., 2010, Taxonomic Notes on the Vespinae of Yunnan (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), American Museum Novitates 2010 (3709) : -

GENUS VESPULA

Vespula gongshanensis Dong , in Dong et al.: 65, female, male – “ China... Gongshan (27°47′N, 98°30′ E), Yunnan Province, alt. 2 950 m ” (holotype female Kunming).

Described from 387 females and one male, collected 2002.X.01, and compared to Vespula rufa rufa (Linnaeus) . The latter has not been reported from China; instead two other subspecies have been recorded from northeastern China ( V. rufa schrenckii Radoszkowski ) and Sichuan ( V. rufa grahami Archer ) ( Archer, 1997: fig. 3). These taxa were not mentioned by Dong et al. (2005), nor were the other Palearctic species of the rufa species group, V. kingdonwardi Archer and V. nursei Archer , although both have been recorded from China (Tibet, and Fujian and Hebei, respectively; Archer, 1997: fig. 1).

Diagnostic characters

Body length about 22 mm. Guiglia (1972: 99) gave the variation in length in V. rufa rufa as 15–17 mm for queens and 10–13 mm for workers, and Archer (1981: 63) gave for V. rufa grahami 16.7 mm for the (single) queen and 11.8–13.7 mm for the workers. The discrepancy between these ranges and the length given by Dong et al. (2005) is at least partly due to the fact that Guiglia and Archer measured length from the head to the end of tergum II, whereas Dong et al.’s body length was measured from the head to the tip of the metasoma, as verified with specimens in the AMNH. The method used by Guiglia and Archer is standard in vespid classification because telescoping of the terminal segments of the metasoma makes comparable measurements including those segments problematic. Approximate measurements of total length of a sample of V. rufa queens in the AMNH (n = 9) and LDC (n = 18) gave a range of 17.5–24.1 mm. A queen of the Nearctic form V. rufa intermedia (du Buysson) in the AMNH had a length of 21.2 mm, a queen of the Chinese form V. rufa grahami Archer in the AMNH had a length of 22.9 mm, and five queens of the northern Asian form V. rufa schrenckii (1 AMNH, 4 MNHN, one of the latter V. sibirica André ) had a range in length of 19.0– 21.9 mm.

Archer (1981: 59–60) gave the length variation in V. nursei as 16.2–18.5 mm for queens and 12.4–15.0 mm for workers, and in V. kingdonwardi as 17.1 mm for the (single) queen and 12.1–13.2 mm for the workers. A worker of V. nursei in the AMNH had a (total) length of 16.3 mm.

Considering the consistent differences between queens and workers for other Palearctic species of the rufa species group, the measurement given by Dong et al. (2005) was thus evidently for queen specimens, although presumably workers were collected.

Scape brownish red. Vespula nursei has the scape brown in part ( Archer, 1981: 57). The scape in V. rufa rufa in Europe is quite variable, ranging from black to yellow ventrally (Guiglia, 1972: 99, 101), and it is yellow in V. rufa grahami from China ( Archer, 1981). Specimens of V. rufa rufa queens in LDC all have the scape black with a reddish-brown tip.