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Topic: Ancistrocerus parietum

Chris,

I recently identified a wasp that I photographed as Ancistrocerus parietum. Out of curiosity, I looked it up on the NBN Atlas only to find that there it was considered to be a synonym of Ancistrocerus parietinus. This also appears to be the case in your sandbox. However, everywhere else I look still has these as two distinct species - PESI, GBIF, BWARS and the most recent Checklist of British and Irish Hymenoptera - aculeates (Apoidea, Chrysidoidea and Vespoidea) available there. Also still 2 separate species in Recorder - version 6.28, Dictionary 0000004K. Can you clarify why A. parietum has suddenly become a junior synonym of A. parietinus.

Charlie Darling
Biodiversity Assistant
Scottish Wildlife Trust

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Re: Ancistrocerus parietum

In terms of verifying records based on photos, BWARS / iRecord verifiers nornally cannot verify most Ancistrocerus species beyond genera because of the similarity of many species and the need to see quite specific microscope level characters to be confident of an ID.

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Re: Ancistrocerus parietum

Chris,

Now that your back, I'll try this again. The NBN Atlas has Ancistrocerus parietum as a synonym of Ancistrocerus parietinus. The most recent Checklist of British and Irish Hymenoptera - aculeates (Apoidea, Chrysidoidea and Vespoidea) that  I can find still considers these to be two separate species as do PESI, GBIF, BWARS.

Things have become even more confused since updating Recorder to 6.30 - now Ancistrocerus parietum is a synonym of Ancistrocerus parietinus and Ancistrocerus parietinus is a synonym of Ancistrocerus parietum.

Charlie Darling
Biodiversity Assistant
Scottish Wildlife Trust

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Re: Ancistrocerus parietum

Apologies for the delay - this should be fixed by the next update :)

Chris Raper, Manager of the UK Species Inventory, Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity,
Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD.  (tel: 020 7942 5894)
also Tachinid Recording Scheme (http://tachinidae.org.uk/)