Ropalidia maculata ( RADOSZKOWSKI 1881 )

Polašek, Ozren, Onah, Ikechukwu, Kehinde, Tope, Rojo, Veronica, Noort, Simon Van & Carpenter, James M., 2025, Revision of the mainland African species of the Old World social wasp genus Ropalidia Guérin-Méneville 1831 (Hymenoptera; Vespidae), Zootaxa 5626 (1), pp. 1-142 : 132

Ropalidia maculata ( RADOSZKOWSKI 1881) , nomen dubium

Icaria maculata RADOSZKOWSKI, 1881 ; Angola (Welwitsch collection)

Type material. Not examined (type unaccounted for). The species description indicates the Welwitsch collection, purchased and distributed mainly across three museums—Berlin, St. Petersburg and Prague (Rosa, Wiśniowski, & Xu, 2015). The initial search indicated that none of these three institutions has the type listed in their repositories. A detailed search of the Berlin collection (including a detailed examination of Eumeninae ) confirmed that the type was not there. The original description of this species also lists several other taxa, which might be informative in this search. The paper suggests that there were also specimens of R. guttatipennis DE SAUSSURE , and types of Odynerus angolensis RADOSZKOWSKI and Odynerus obscurus RADOSZKOWSKI ( Radoszkowski, 1881) . While the Eumeninae types were accounted for and are currently deposited in the collection, it seems that Ropalidia specimens were systematically lost, as the Berlin collection does not house any Ropalidia from Angola, not even the mentioned R. guttatipennis (DE SAUSSURE) . In addition, there was a single specimen identified from the Welwitsch collection in all of the examined collections. The specimen is a female R. tenebrica sp. nov. from Angola. We then performed additional checks of the available males, and identified multiple deviations from the type description, in the colour of the mesosoma and metasoma, suggesting that these two are not conspecific.

Diagnosis. The description refers to a male with an overall very dark appearance. The translation from German reports “black: head, epimeron, mesosoma, legs, metasoma black, except segments 1, 4 and 5 ferruginous. Wings translucent, apical spot dark brown. Head large, covered with silvery pubescence. Mesosoma underside to tarsi reddish; mesonotum black, propodeum covered with silvery pubescence ” ( Radoszkowski, 1881). The description indicates an overall length of 11 mm, which would suggest that this was most likely a member of the capensis - group. The most problematic feature in the description is the colour of the metasomal segments, which do not seem to show any skipping pattern in Ropalidia (as opposed to a common skip in the tergum colour in Polistes or even Eumeninae ). No examined specimens of Ropalidia had a colour pattern that would include T1–4–5 combinations, suggesting that this might not even be a member of the genus Ropalidia . Unfortunately, the lack of specimen and inability to identify any examined specimens suggest that this taxon should be considered nomen dubium.