New Record and Observations of Parapolybia escalerae (Meade-Waldo, 1911) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Polistinae) in Kurdistan, Iraq.

Among the Polistinae, the tribe Ropalidiini has four genera, of which Parapolybia is one of them. This genus is distributed in the Middle East and East Asia, from Turkey to the Korean peninsula to Japan. Two species of this genus are known to occur only in the Middle East: Parapolybia escalerae (Meade-Waldo, 1911) and Parapolybia persica Meade-Waldo, 1911 (Saito et al., 2015). Parapolybia escalerae is recorded in Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey (Gusenleitner, 1988; Yildirim & Kojima, 1999; YATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTEldATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTErATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTEm & Gusenleitner, 2007; Kemal & Kocak, 2015; Rahmani et al., 2020), while P. persica is only recorded in Iran (Kojima & Carpenter, 1997; Rahmani et al., 2020). Parapolybia escalerae is easily distinguishable at a glance, and it has a pale appearance. The shorter petiole and variably formed second metasomal segment distinguish this species from P. persica. In P. persica, the second metasomal segment is as broad at the apex as it is long, whereas in P. escalerae, it is one and quarter times as long as it is broad at the apex and appears to be much slenderer (Meade-Waldo, 1911). A number of faunistic studies about the subfamily Polistinae have been conducted in Iraq. Only three species that belong to the genus Polistes have been recorded (Carpenter, 1996; Augul, 2017). The three species were Polistes gallicus (Linnaeus, 1767), recorded by Derwesh (1965), Polistes wattii Cameron, 1900, recorded by Khalaf & Al-Omar (1974) and Polistes nimpha (Christ, 1791) mentioned in the Carpenter (1996) checklist. We had observed Parapolybia escalerae in the Kurdistan region, Iraq, for the first time and we aimed that our finding will add some valuable information about the distribution and social behavior of this rare species, but still more study on nesting behavior, combs, and food products is necessary and recommended.