Pontania femoralis var. virilis Zirngiebl, 1955: 67 –68. Described: ♀, ♂, larva, gall, recorded host: Salix sp. Lectotype, ♀, designated by Kopelke (1990b), ZSM [examined]. Type locality: Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate, Naturschutzgebiet Dannstadt.
Pontania virilis: Kopelke (1990b); new status.
Euura virilis: Beneš (2015b).
Pontania rifana Lacourt, 1973: 190 –192. Described: ♀. Holotype, ♀, JLLP [not examined]. Type locality: Morocco, Rif, Djebel Tidighine. Synonymy with P. virilis by Kopelke (1990b).
Variability. Female: Body length: 2.9–4.5mm. Male: 2.7–3.3mm. Adults from further south in Europe tend to be much paler than, for example, those from the north of Germany. Reared females from the French Pyrenees (leg. E. Heibo) are themselves variable in colour; in the palest, the whole clypeus, supraclypeal area, pronotum, mesepisternum apart from sterno-pleural black patch, part of mesoscutellum, entire femur and most of apex and sterna of abdomen are yellow-brown. North African specimens are intermediate in colour to those from the Pyrenees and N. Germany. Total number of specimens examined: 30.
Genetic data. The COI barcode of a single specimen identified as virilis (GenBank accession EU084002, from Germany) diverges from the next nearest of other dolichura group species by approximately 4.9% (see also Nyman et al. 2007). However, newer COI sequences of dolichura group larvae collected from S. purpurea (which should therefore be E. virilis), locate at two different positions in the tree (Nyman, unpublished).
Bionomics. Host plants: Salix purpurea (Kopelke 1994), S. viminalis × purpurea (Beneš 2015a). Biology: Kopelke (1985, as P. dolichura), Zirngiebl (1955).
Distribution. North Africa (Morocco: Lacourt 1999), through most of South and Central Europe (Taeger et al. 2006), north to Schleswig-Holstein in Germany (Blank et al. 2001) and Estonia (Taeger et al. 2006). Occurrence in Sweden: no records from Fennoscandia, but presence in southern Sweden possible.