Considering the available data, the genus Holoteleia Kieffer is one of the rarest genera of the family Scelionidae in the Palearctic Realm. During almost a century [from 1899, when the first specimen was collected in Coazze, Italy by A. Dodero (Bin 1974) and until the last mention of it by Masner (1994)], only twelve specimens belonging to this genus were collected in Europe. Initially, Holoteleia was described by Kieffer (1908) as a subgenus of Baryconus Förster, and was characterized by transverse first metasomal tergite (T1) without a horn and postmar-ginal vein twice as long as stigmal vein. Baryconus (Holoteleia) bicolor Kieffer, 1908 was designated as the type species of this subgenus. In his newly created subgenus Holoteleia, Kieffer transferred some of Ashmead's Nearctic species of Caloteleia Ashmead: C. dorsalis (Ashmead, 1896), C. elongata (Ashmead, 1894), and C. maculipennis (Ashmead, 1894) (Ashmead 1894, 1896). Brues (1908) accepted Holoteleia as a subgenus of Baryconus, but raised some doubts regarding the placement of the type species—a European species—in the same subgenus as these American species. Kieffer (1910), in his “Addenda et corrigenda”, presented the same data as in his 1908 paper with the small exception of the data concerning the distribution of ASHMEAD's species transferred to Holoteleia. He also did not address the concerns of BRUES in this paper. Three years later, Kieffer (1913: 231), in his key for the identification of the genera belonging to the tribe Scelioninae (“Tribe no. 4”), considered Holoteleia as a genus distinct from Baryconus. He kept the same opinion the following year (Kieffer 1914) when he published a short diagnosis for Holoteleia together with the description of H. bicolor, copied to the letter from his 1908 paper.

Kieffer's (1926) monograph illustrated some significant changes in his concept of Holoteleia. First of all, Ashmead's species of Caloteleia (previously included by Kieffer in Holoteleia) were excluded from Holoteleia and regarded as species of Baryconus. As a consequence of this transfer, Holoteleia remained a monotypic genus. The second change was in the name of the type species H. bicolor. What Kieffer did not know upon description of that species was that the name Baryconus bicolor was preoccupied, as in 1899 the Canadian entomologist William Hague Harrington described a scelionid species collected somewhere in Ottawa under the same name (Harrington 1899). Although Kieffer was not familiar with Harrington's B. bicolor when he described his B. bicolor in 1908, he certainly became aware of this species in 1910 when he decided to transfer it from Baryconus to Leptoteleia Kieffer. Although Kieffer (1926) maintained B. bicolor Harrington in Leptoteleia, he decided to avoid the homonymy between his species and Harrington's species for unknown reasons. His solution to this problem was a replacement name for Holoteleia bicolor Kieffer, which became Holoteleia nigriceps Kieffer nomen novum. The act of replacing the name was an inspired one, as Masner (1976) later transferred Baryconus bicolor Harrington to Holoteleia.

Figs. 1–2.

Habitus of Holoteleia nigriceps. 1. Dorsal view with detail of skaphion (left) and fore wing (right). 2. Lateral view.

Figs. 3–7.

Holoteleia nigriceps. 3. Head, frontal view. 4. Antenna, malar sulcus and sculpture of lower frons. 5. Head, mesosoma, tergites 1 and 2. 6. Mesosoma, lateral view. 7. Distribution (blue dots: data from the literature; red dot: new record for Germany).

As was common at that time, Kieffer (1908) did not designate a holotype for Baryconus (Holoteleia) bicolor [the regulation was established after 1999 by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), Art 16.4]. Therefore, the species was described based on a syntypic series: one female from Nava, Italy, collected by the Italian coleopterist FERDINANDO SOLARI, one female from Forêt de Saint-Germain, France, collected by the French entomologist JULES DEGAULLE, and one female from Bitche, France, probably collected by Kieffer himself. At the time of the original description, Bitche was located in Germany. Other studies located the specimen from Nava in the MANTERO Collection in Museo Civico di Storia Nat-urale “G. Doria” (Genoa, Italy) (Bin 1974) and the specimen from Forêt de Saint-Germain in the JULES DEGAULLE Collection in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (Paris, France) (Masner 1976). We have no data concerning today's whereabouts of the specimen from Bitche.

Masner (1956) published Holoteleia nigriceps from Bohemia, Řevnice as a new species record for Czechoslovakia, characterizing it as an “extraordinary, rare sole species”. Bin (1974) designated as lectotype the specimen of Baryconus (Holoteleia) bicolor from Nava held in Genoa. After Bin (1974), new specimens of H. nigriceps were collected from Austria and Italy (Masner 1976). Masner, in his revision of the Nearctic species of Holoteleia, again discussed the European species H. nigriceps. To emphasize the rarity of Holoteleia in Europe, Masner (1994) compared it with the Nearctic Holoteleia species, showing the 12 specimens from Europe (belonging to a single species) against the 1,029 specimens from the Nearctic (distributed in seven species). The disparity of Holoteleia's distribution and diversity between Europe and North America is certainly striking; however, we consider there not to be enough data to draw conclusions on why this genus seems to be more common and speciose in the New World.

At present, we do not have much data concerning H. nigriceps, whose male has not yet been described. The host of H. nigriceps is unknown, but Masner (1994) presumed that the Nearctic species of Holoteleia possibly use ground crickets in the subfamily Nemobiinae (Gryllidae) as host species. Adults of H. nigriceps have been collected in August–September.

Holoteleia nigriceps is a South and Central European species (Fig. 7). It has been reported from Austria [unknown locality (Masner 1976)], Czech Republic [Řevnice (Masner 1956)], Italy [Nava (Kieffer 1908, 1914; Bin 1974), Coazze (Bin 1974), unknown locality (Masner 1976)] and France [Bitche (Kieffer 1908, 1914, 1926), Forêt de Saint-Germain (Kieffer 1908, 1914, 1926; Masner 1976)]. Kononova & Kozlov (2008) took the description and distribution of this species from Kieffer (1926), mentioning this fact on page 277. However, there was an inconsistency in the information provided: in the distribution of this species they also included Germany, whereas Kieffer (1926) had only listed France and Italy. On the other hand, Germany was mentioned for H. nigriceps twice in Kieffer (1908) and Kieffer (1914), but this was because the borders between France and Germany changed after the First World War and Kieffer made sure to rectify the distribution records in accordance with changes in political geography.

In this light, the specimen of Holoteleia (Figs. 1–6) from Baden-Württemberg finally adds Germany to the distribution list of this genus. Our publication is a small step towards filling the gaps regarding the distribution and ecology of this rare species. We found a female specimen of H. nigriceps from near Rohrbronn in the south-western German region of Baden-Württemberg. The specimen was collected by the second author with an aspirator, accidentally, from an ant container (terrarium). The terrarium had been filled with leaf litter collected from a mixed forest (48.8231N 9.4600E; altitude ∼430 m) near Rohrbronn. The microhabitat of the container was meant to resemble the leaf litter layer of a forest and included moss, leaves, soil, and other invertebrates such as isopods, millipedes (family Blaniulidae), and springtails. Although the historical data indicate that H. nigriceps is typically collected in August–September, the specimen presented here emerged in May. We consider this an important addition to the knowledge of the biology of H. nigriceps in Europe. Given the rarity of this genus on the continent, we think this finding is a valuable contribution that helps fill in temporal and spatial distribution gaps and suggests that taxa, while perhaps rare, can still be widespread.