Volker Lohrmann

Übersee-Museum Bremen · Natural History

Taxonomy, the science of describing and naming of the living world, is recognized as an important and relevant field in modern biological science. While there is wide agreement on the importance of a complete inventory of all organisms on Earth, the public is partly unaware of the amount of known and unknown biodiversity. Out of the enormous number...

Rhopalosomatidae are a family of aculeate wasps that are ectoparasitoids of crickets as larvae and are predominantly distributed pantropically. The published fossil record of the family is scarce. Here, we report three new fossil rhopalosomatid wasp specimens from Dominican and Mexican amber. Rhopalosoma hispaniola Lohrmann sp. nov. is described an...

Rhopalosomatidae, currently considered the sister group of the Vespidae, are an enigmatic family of aculeate wasps that originated in the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous. Despite their considerable age, very few fossils of the family have been reported – all of them in amber (Miocene Dominican, Miocene Mexican, and mid-Cretaceous Burmese ambers)....

Rhopalosomatidae are an unusual family of wasps (Hymenoptera: Aculeata) comprising less than 100 species found in the tropics and subtropics of all continents except Europe and Antarctica. Whereas some species resemble nocturnal Ichneumonidae, others might be mistaken for spider wasps or different groups of brachypterous Hymenoptera. Despite their...

It is with sadness that I announce the death of Dr. Herbert Hohmann on the second day of Christmas last year at the age of 81. Born in 1940, Herbert grew up in the countryside of Hessen (Germany) at a time when the biodiversity crisis was still to come. Driven by the overwhelming beauty of nature and his fascination for all living things, young He...

Insekten sind die artenreichste Tiergruppe auf der Erde. Nahezu überall zu finden, überleben sie auch unter extremen Bedingungen. Für uns Menschen erbringen sie wertvolle Ökosystemdienstleistungen, wie zum Beispiel die Bestäubung, und haben dennoch oft einen schlechten Ruf. Insekten sind aber auch stark gefährdet: Ihre Populationen gehen so stark z...

Die Gründe für den Insektenschwund

Changing species assemblages represent major challenges to ecosystems around the world. Retracing these changes is limited by our knowledge of past biodiversity. Natural history collections represent archives of biodiversity and are therefore an unparalleled source to study biodiversity changes. In the present study, we tested the value of natural...

Rhopalosomatidae are unusual wasps whose larvae develop as ectoparasitoids on crickets. In America north of Mexico, three genera and six species are recognized. Host species are known only for Rhopalosoma nearcticum Brues and include Hapithus agitator Uhler, H. brevipennis (Saussure), and H. saltator (Uhler) (Gryllidae: Hapithinae). Here we report...

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) commits its 196 nation parties to conserve biological diversity, use its components sustainably, and share fairly and equitably the benefits from the utilization of genetic resources. The last of these objectives was further codified in the Convention's Nagoya Protocol (NP), which came into effect in 201...

The orchid bee collection of the Übersee-Museum Bremen (UMB), which is reported here in detail, currently comprises 399 specimens representing 50 species in 5 genera. The specimens originate from Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Surinam, and Venezuela with the oldest records dating ba...

The Übersee-Museum Bremen, which was founded in 1896 as the “Städtisches Museum für Natur-, Völker- und Handelskunde”, embraces three departments: “natural history”, “ethnology”, and “trade history”. With this combination the Übersee-Museum is unique not only in Germany but also in Europe. It houses a collection of about 1.2 million plants, fungi,...

A remarkable teratological female of Polistes (Fuscopolistes) dorsalis neotropicus Be-quaert, 1940 (Vespidae: Polistinae) is described and illustrated. The specimen lacks all three external dorsal ocelli but is normally developed in almost every other aspect. Additionally , similar findings in other Hymenoptera are briefly discussed, as are the con...

A remarkable teratological female of Megascolia (Regiscolia) maculata flavifrons (Fabricius, 1775) (Scoliidae: Scoliinae: Scoliini) with a supernumerary median ocellus is described and illustrated. While supernumerary ocelli have been reported before from Diptera, Orthoptera, and Hymenoptera, this is the first record of such a malformation from a s...

The gryllid parasitoid wasp family Rhopalosomatidae (Aculeata: Vespoidea) is currently represented in the United States by three genera and six species: Liosphex boreus Lohrmann, L. varius Townes, Olixon banksii (Brues), O. melinsula Lohrmann et al., O. testaceum Cameron, and Rhopalosoma nearcticum Brues (Townes, 1977; Lohrmann and Ohl, 2010; Lohrm...

An updated classification of the order Hymenoptera is provided with the current numbers of genera and species described so far specified. The order is composed of 2 suborders, 27 superfamilies, 132 families, 8423 extant genera with an additional 685 extinct genera. Considered one of the most species-rich insects orders a total of 153088 extant spec...

The New World species of the brachypterous wasp genus Olixon Cameron are revised and five species are recognized: Olixon atlanticum Fernandez & Sarmiento-M., O. banksii (Brues), O. bicolor Roig Alsina & Martínez, O. melinsula sp. n. and O. testaceum Cameron. The new species and the previously unknown female of O. bicolor are described. An identific...

Thailand is one of the countries in Southeast Asia with a remarkably rich but fragmentarily known insect diversity. Since its beginning in 2006, the Thailand Inventory Group for Entomological Research, known as the TIGER-group, has collected about 5,400 specimens of apoid wasps. Here we compare the preliminary results of our taxonomic analysis of t...

The species of Paniscomima of continental Africa are revised and two new species are described: Paniscomima kilombero sp. n. from Tanzania and P. mulanje sp. n. from Malawi. Both new species differ from the hitherto known continental African Paniscomima in having the junction of Cu and 2cu-a thickened or nodular (not thickened or nodular in P. erla...

The wasp genus Liosphex Townes 1977 is revised and twelve new species are described: Liosphex achuar sp. nov. (Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama and Peru), L. atratus sp. nov. (Costa Rica and Mexico), L. boreus sp. nov. (Mexico, Kentucky and Mississippi, USA), L. bribri sp. nov. (Costa Rica, Panama and Peru), L. darien sp. nov. (Panama), L. guanabara sp....

The wasp genus Liosphex Townes 1977 is revised and twelve new species are described: Liosphex achuar sp. nov. (Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama and Peru), L. atratus sp. nov. (Costa Rica and Mexico), L. boreus sp. nov. (Mexico, Kentucky and Mississippi, USA), L. bribri sp. nov. (Costa Rica, Panama and Peru), L. darien sp. nov. (Panama), L. guanabara sp....

Within the Rhopalosomatidae the genus Liosphex townes, 1977 is the smallest of all recent genera with only two described species: Liosphex trichopleurum townes, 1977 and L. varius townes, 1977. Newly collected material of Liosphex and the type series of L. varius was reinvestigated and at least eight new species were found – some include specimens...

Sequences from the nuclear long-wavelength-rhodopsin and the mitochondrial cytochrom-c-oxidase (subunit I) from different representatives of the Apoidea, with special emphasis on digger wasps (Sphecidae sensu lat), were analysed using maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Baysian inference methods. Compared with previous phylogenetic studies ba...

Two new species, Olixon toliaraensis sp. nov. and Olixon martini sp. nov. (Hymenoptera: Rhopalosomatidae) are described from Madagascar. They represent the first record of this genus from this island. The two species are morphologically similar, but Olixon toliaraensis sp. nov. is mainly characterized by an indentation of the apicolateral carina of...

Two new species, Olixon toliaraensis sp. nov. and Olixon martini sp. nov. (Hymenoptera: Rhopalosomatidae) are described from Madagascar. They represent the first record of this genus from this island. The two species are morphologically similar, but Olixon toliaraensis sp. nov. is mainly characterized by an indentation of the apicolateral carina of...