Hybos culiciformis

Hybos culiciformis (Fabricius) (Fig. 2H) Material examined. L5: 1 ♀. Distribution. A widespread and common species occurring throughout Europe, also recorded from Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco and Turkey. Possible misidentifications with Hybos conicus may occur (Chvála & Kovalev 1989; Chvála 2011b; Shamshev et al. 2015; Zouhair & Kettani 2022). This is the first record of the species from Albania. Remarks. During the present collecting trip, both Hybos culiciformis and the recently described, highly similar H. conicus were collected at the same locality. The single female of H. culiciformis collected during the present study possesses practically all characters mentioned in the original description as distinguishing it from H. conicus, including a long ventral preapical spur on the mid tibiae, largely shiny margins of abdominal tergites 3–5, a shorter postpedicel than the apical mechanoreceptor, and pale scutellar setae. The occurrence of both highly similar species at the same locality is noteworthy, as populations historically identified as “ H. culiciformis ” form a geographical gradient in both genital and non-genital characters (e.g., chaetotaxy) (Kanavalová et al. 2021).