Diversity of the genus Chrysotoxum Meigen, 1802 (Diptera: Syrphidae) in southeastern Europe and Turkey

The genus Chrysotoxum (Syrphinae: Syrphini) consists of large, wasp-mimicking species with elongated antennae, an abdomen strongly convex dorsally, with yellow fasciae on terga, and the thoracic pleurae with yellow maculae (Thompson & Rotheray 1998). Chrysotoxum species are distributed in all biogeographical regions except Australasia and Antarctica (Vockeroth 1969; Thompson, Rotheray & Zumbado 2010). In the Palaearctic, 71 species have been recorded, 21 of which are present in Europe plus Turkey (Speight 2018).

Although comprehensive studies of the species of the C. festivum and C. vernale groups were conducted for the Balkan Peninsula (Nedeljković et al. 2013; 2015), that of the C. intermedium is still under scrutiny. As a result of comprehensive faunistic and taxonomic study four new species were described from Turkey in the last two years (Vujić et al. 2017; Nedeljković et al. 2018).

Examination of about 2000 specimens of Chrysotoxum from different localities in southeastern Europe and Turkey resulted in the identification of 26 species, one of which is new to science and other three are morphologically distinctive morphotypes and, possibly new species. Chrysotoxum verae Violovitsh, 1973, an extremely rare species, known only from the type locality (Caucasus, Armenia), is new for the Turkish fauna. Relationships among the 9 studied species were analyzed and discussed based on the data of nuclear (ITS2) and mitochondrial (COI) genes sequences. Distribution maps for each species are provided.