Myrmillinae Bischoff, 1920

Okayasu, Juriya, Lelej, Arkady S., Williams, Kevin A., Brabant, Craig M., Nguyen, Lien Thi Phuong, Nguyen, Anh Duc, Pham, Thai Hong & Truong, Tuong Thi Cat, 2025, Current knowledge on the velvet ants (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae, Myrmosidae) of Vietnam: faunal review and new distributional records, Zootaxa 5668 (1), pp. 1-104 : 24

Subfamily Myrmillinae Bischoff, 1920

This subfamily is widespread in the Old World, and few species occur in Wallacea ( Lelej 2002, 2005, 2024; Pagliano et al. 2020; Brothers 2022). In the Oriental Region, it is represented by the genera Bethsmyrmilla Krombein & Lelej, 1999 , Bischoffitilla Lelej, 2002 , Brahmatilla Lelej, 2005 , Myrmilla Wesmael, 1851 , and Spilomutilla Ashmead, 1903 . Many East Asian species of this subfamily were initially described or subsequently placed in the Afrotropical genus Squamulotilla Bischoff, 1920 by previous authors (e.g., Mickel 1933ab, 1934, 1935; Pagden 1934a, 1949; Chen 1957). They were reallocated to Bischoffitilla by Lelej (2002, 2005), leaving only one myrmilline genus in East Asia. The other four genera are known from India and Sri Lanka only (Lelej 2005).

Genus Bischoffitilla Lelej, 2002

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:609C107C-9382-4156-889A-23D7A40AC27C

Bischoffitilla Lelej, 2002: 28 , ♂ ♀; Lelej 2005: 23; Lelej & Brothers 2008: 11; Pagliano et al. 2020: 140; Sutanto et al. 2021: 2, ♂ ♀. Type species: Squamulotilla exilipunctata Chen, 1957 (♀), by original designation.

Diversity and distribution. This is the largest genus of the subfamily with 76 described species ( Lelej 2002, 2005, 2024; Williams et al. 2019b; Pagliano et al. 2020). They are distributed throughout the Oriental Region and reach the Palaearctic part of China, Korean Peninsula, and Japan in the north and Afghanistan and Pakistan in the west ( Lelej 2002, 2005; Lelej et al. 2013).

Remarks. Bischoffitilla species are tiny wasps and hard to identify. Identification keys to the species from China, Taiwan, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and southern Thailand are available in Mickel (1935) (supplemented by Tsuneki et al. 1993), Chen (1957), and Williams et al. (2019b). However, many morphospecies that cannot be readily identified with those references are recognized in Vietnam and neighboring countries (JO pers. obs.).