A new species of Harpactus Shuckard (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) from the Balkan Peninsula

Since the first member of the genus Harpactus was described in 1792 by Latreille, 10 1 species and subspecies names have been proposed. A total of 72 species and 7 subspecies are valid now. Species of the genus occur in the Afrotropical, Holarctic and Oriental zoogeographic Regions. Thirteen species of Harpactus are currently known from the Balkan Peninsula: affinis (Spinola), consanguineus (Handlirsch), croaticus Vogrin, elegans (Lepeletier), exiguus (Handlirsch), formosus (Jurine), laevis (Latreille), lunatus (Dahlbom), moravicus (Snoflak), niger (A. Costa), picticornis Vogrin, tauricus Radoszkowsky, and tumidus (Panzer) (Handlirsch, 1888, 1895; Maidl, 1922; Vogrin, 1954; de Beaumont, 1965, 1967; Scobiola-Palade, 1967, 1972, 1974; Barbier, 1992; Ljubomirov, 1996; Lyubomirov, 2000 among others). Two of them, croaticus and picticornis are probably endemic. The species described below is supposed to be endemic as well.