Anthidium ( Anthidium ) akanthurum Nadimi & Talebi, 2014

Anthidium ( Anthidium) akanthurum Nadimi & Talebi, 2014 View in CoL , sp. resurr.

Fig. 2 View Figure 2

Description of male (hitherto unknown).

Length 8 mm. Head: clypeus 1.35 × as long as broad, distinctly convex, pale yellow, densely punctured, with broad polished longitudinal line in middle; apical margin straight, with narrow translucent lamella; paraocular area densely punctured, to level of insertion of antenna pale yellow; clypeus, paraocular area, and frons with dense white hairs about as long as width of mandible; gena and occiput with nearly complete fused yellow band, narrowly interrupted only in middle of occiput; frons and vertex black; vertex and occiput with yellowish hairs longer than those on clypeus, paraocular area, and frons; distance between lateral ocellus and occiputal margin about 2.3 × diameter of lateral ocellus; mandible pale yellow, tridentate, teeth black; scape black dorsally and yellow ventrally, pedicel mostly black, flagellum brown dorsally and light brown ventrally. Mesosoma: scutum densely punctured, moderately shining, with greyish-yellow hairs as those on vertex and occiput, not hiding surface, with L-shaped yellow anterolateral stripe at each side; mesepisternum to propodeum densely covered with white hairs as those on clypeus, paraocular area, and frons; tegula pale yellow, disk brown in middle; scutellum slightly produced over propodeum, densely punctured, moderately shining, with greyish-yellow hairs, black with apical yellow band interrupted medially; apical margin of scutellum rounded, very slightly emarginate in middle, not lamellate; axilla not united with scutellum, black with posterolateral yellow spot, laterally rounded; pronotal lobe pale yellow, otherwise mesosoma black; second recurrent vein intersticial with apex of second transverse cubital vein; basal vein originating considerably basad of transverse median vein; legs mostly yellow with ferruginous, densely pubescent similarly to mesepisternum to propodeum; outer face of hind tibia rounded; hind spurs pale yellow. Metasoma: terga 1–6 rather dull, with fine dense punctures on discs, interspaces reaching at most puncture diameter; tergal discs reddish-brown basally and with complete yellow bands apically; depression with much denser and finer punctures, completely dull, brown and translucent; terga with few short erect whitish hairs and apical bands of appressed white hairs, more distinct on terga 3 and 4 and present only laterally on terga 1 and 2; tergum 6 with hooked lateral projections; tergum 7 nearly completely yellow, apically tridentate but mid tooth very small, with apical translucent margin; sterna very shallowly and indistinctly punctured, rather shining, mostly brown with little black and yellow areas; apical margins of sterna 1–5 with bands of appressed white hairs; sternum 6 medially with broad polished longitudinal line lacking pilosity, laterally producing as long strong acute tooth, apically with long, anchor-shaped extension; sternum 7 deeply divided medially on two apically rounded lobes; sternum 8 with rounded postero-lateral lobes and narrow hairy apical projection; genitalia typical of the genus Anthidium Fabricius, 1804 , with penis valves broadly separated and connected subapically; penis valve apically curved and tapering; gonostylus hairy, just singly enlarged towards apex and apically rounded.

Material examined.

Azerbaijan. Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic • Julfa, 5 km N Dize , 39°03'N, 45°45'E, 965 m, 20. VI. 2019, 1 ♂, leg. M. Proshchalykin, Kh. Aliyev, M. Maharramov [ CMKH] GoogleMaps ; • Ordubad, Bilav , 39°02'43"N, 45°49'07"E, 1050 m, 22. V. 2025, 1 ♀, leg. M. Proshchalykin, M. Maharramov [ ZISP] GoogleMaps ; • ibid., 27. V. 2025, 1 ♂, leg. M. Proshchalykin, M. Maharramov [ ZISP] GoogleMaps .

Distribution.

Azerbaijan, Iran.

Remarks.

Fateryga et al. (2020) erroneously synonymized this species with Anthidium ( Anthidium) gussakovskiji Mavromoustakis, 1939 and reported the latter taxon from Azerbaijan. Anthidium akanthurum was described based on females only ( Nadimi et al. 2014), while a single male was available to Fateryga et al. (2020). Later, Kasparek (2022 a, 2022 b) published images of the male A. gussakovskiji and Maharramov et al. (2023) found the specimen examined by Fateryga et al. (2020) different, definitely belonging to a distinct species. Therefore, A. gussakovskiji was excluded from the fauna of Azerbaijan ( Maharramov et al. 2023). Newly collected material of both sexes allowed us to ascertain that “ A. gussakovskiji ” sensu Fateryga et al. (2020) indeed belonged to A. akanthurum , despite that it was not conspecific to A. gussakovskiji . Therefore, the hitherto unknown male of A. akanthurum is formally described here and the species is resurrected from the incorrect synonymy with A. gussakovskiji . The main difference between males of these two species is in sternum 6, which lateral projection is directed rather posteriorly in A. gussakovskiji (fig. 4 C in Kasparek 2022 a and fig. C on p. 104 in Kasparek 2022 b) but strongly laterally in A. akanthurum (Fig. 2 D View Figure 2 ).