Redescription of Holopyga calida Linsenmaier, 1951

Male: body length 3.5-5.5 mm.

Head. Vertex and frons with round, dense, 0.1-0.5 PD apart, shallow punctures; postero-laterally to ocelli with small polished area and tiny punctures; on ocellar area and occiput with smaller, sparse punctures. Scapal basin deep, glabrous, from smooth to distinctly striate. Ocellar triangle isosceles, with postocellar line deeply impressed. Clypeal apical margin straight. Malar space short, less than 1.0 MOD. Subantennal space less than 1.0 MOD, shorter than antennal socket diameter. Genal carina hardly visible from lower edge of eye to mandible. Mandibles tridentate, brown, at mid-length lighter. Relative length of P:F1:F2:F3 = 1.0:1.4:0.8:0.7. In dorsal view, temples angulate, with slightly convergent sides.

Mesosoma. Pronotum with double punctation and tiny punctures on intervals. Mesoscutum, between notauli, postero-medially with larger and denser punctures; notauli complete, visible as deep and fine lines, basally enlarged in a deep pit (1.0 MOD long); parapsidal furrows deep, as long as 2/3 of mesoscutal length. Suture between mesoscutum and mesoscutellum deep, broad (0.5 MOD), non-metallic black. Mesoscutellum with large, uneven punctures, with tiny dots on polished intervals. Metascutellum with large, considerably deep, polygonal, foveate-reticulate punctures, with sharp intervals among them. Mesopleuron angulate, with large, foveate-reticulate punctures. Posterior propodeal projections triangular, directed backwards. Forewing medial vein strongly arched in the middle. Forefemur ventrally expanded and slightly carinate.

Metasoma. Metasomal terga with small, even, and dense punctures, medially 0.5-1.0 PD apart, with polished intervals, laterally subcontiguous to subconfluent. Third tergum slightly swollen before apical margin, the latter with narrow, translucent rim, medially slightly emarginate. Second metasomal sternum postero-medially with small, scattered punctures. Genital capsule as in Fig. 2A and B.

Colouration. Dorsally metallic red; axillary trough, mesosomal sutures and dorsal area of the metapectalpropodeal complex black; femora, on anterior side, and tibiae metallic red; body ventrally black. Scape black, with faint metallic reflections, flagellum black. Tegulae brown.

Vestiture. Dorsally entirely covered with short (less than 1.0 MOD), sparse, erect, whitish setae; the latter ventrally longer (up to 1.5 MOD) on second and third metasomal sternum.

Female: similar to male, yet easily recognizable for the shape of the third metasomal tergum, subovoid instead of rounded.

Distribution. South-western Europe: Spain, Portugal, south of France. North Africa: Morocco.

Remarks. Linsenmaier (1951) described calida as a variety of Holopyga gloriosa (sensu Linsenmaier, nec Fabricius), giving as distribution “ Armenien, Palästina, Ägypten, Marokko ”. Later Linsenmaier (1959), recognizing “ H. gloriosa ” as a complex of several distinct species, transferred calida as subspecies to H. gogorzae Trautmann, with distribution restricted to Morocco (type locality), since specimens from Middle East were recognized to belong to different species; those from Palestine were described as H. enslini n. sp., while those from Armenia and Egypt were no longer dealt with. Incidentally, the original description of H. gloriosa var. calida is partly incorrect, where it says “dunkel bronzene Unterseite des Thorax” [= dark bronze underside of thorax], which indeed only applies to the true H. calida from Morocco, not to any of Eastern taxa, H. enslini included.

As discussed above, however, Linsenmaier’s H. gogorzae was misinterpreted. Holopyga calida in our opinion deserves good species rank, because well distinct from the true H. gogorzae Trautmann through entirely red (except for underside) body colouration, head in frontal view wider than high, and shape of genital capsule. The differences reported by Linsenmaier (1959, 1999) between the Moroccan calida (Figs. 4A, B and 7) and the alleged Spanish nominotypical subspecies (Figs. 5 and 6) are here considered not worthy of a subspecific distinction, although the finer and sparser metasomal punctation, which results in a brighter shine, appears to be consistent. The dimensions, said to be smaller in Moroccan populations, conversely proved overall variable.