Conspectus of the Sphecid wasps of Egypt (Hymenoptera: Ampulicidae, Sphecidae, Crabronidae)

Abstract

The sphecid wasps of Egypt and the Sinai have received much attention ever since Spinola wrote his paper in 1839 on the wasps collected by Fischer. He listed 29 species, all of which were described as new. The next main contribution was Walker’s unfortunate paper of 1871. His descriptions were seriously inadequate and his type material has disappeared, destroyed by dermestids (Innes 1912). Thus of the 27 species he created, 22 are unidentifiable and are, therefore, mere lumber in the literature. Next was Kohl’s paper of 1897 in which he dealt with the material collected by Schmiedeknecht: a number of species have as their type locality “Adelen Inseln”, which is now known to be an island in the Nile opposite Dahshour (see Morice 1900a). A few more species were added to the Egyptian list by Morice (1897a,b) and Storey (1916).