Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
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Velvet Ant - Russia (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Andy Adcock
- Start date
RafaelMatias
Unknown member
Yes, I can confirm it as M. marginata (as in the previous post where it was identified, a few months ago). Besides the silvery pubescence covering legs (not shown by M. europaea), the abundant dark pubescence (including over thorax/mesosoma) is also characteristic of marginata. Ukraine is the type locality for marginata, and that species is one of the most abundant species in Russia, that far north (not many species there as well).
PS: sorry, but I'm only now seeing this thread, due to the previous reply.
PS: sorry, but I'm only now seeing this thread, due to the previous reply.
Last edited:
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Sorry, I'm getting old.....:-C
RafaelMatias
Unknown member
No worries Andy, I actually wasn't too assertive with my first answer, and meanwhile I had time to look at it properly: there's a work on Russian mutillids, but it's in Russian, still one of the main references on Palearctic mutillids; it takes some time (to me) to wade through it. Mutillid wasps are among my very favourite insects, so please do post photos of them if you get some more (if you manage to make them hold still long enough for a photo that is); sadly, some species are not identifiable from photos (only under a potent microscope), and one's required some practice to understand individual variation. I'm not sure how many species you have around there (St Petersburg), but I'd guess less than 10 (between 5 and 10?), whereas they're in the order of 60 species in Iberia (with some species probably yet to be described), making it a bit complicated. Cheers
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Many thanks again Rafael.
CerambyX
Well-known member
I think there should be only 4 mutillid wasps around St.Petersburg - Mutilla europaea, M.marginta, Smycromyrme rufipes and Myrmosa atra (if you count this one as Mutillidae - opinions differ I guess). At least that's the situation in Latvia and we are located even a bit more south but don't get any more additional species. From my experience from two Mutilla species the M.europaea is more common than M.marginata over here, but I have feeling that marginata has been expanding in recent years, similar maybe like scoliid wasp Scolia hirta that's arrived only recently (~year 2014) but now has reached even Estonia in N.
RafaelMatias
Unknown member
Many thanks, interesting. That's what I suspected. :t:
