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Subspecies
No subspecies are recognized.


Original description
Original spelling: Helorus meridionalis

Pschorn-Walcher H (1955). Revision der Heloridae (Hymenoptera, Proctotrupoidea). Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen Entomologischen Gesellschaft 28, 233-250 (p. 247).

Locus typicus: Near Bologna (Italy). The type is not in Vienna (Austria); it might be in Geneva (Switzerland) (according to Townes (1977)).


Synonyms
Helorus flavipes Hellén, 1941 (partim) (nec Kieffer, 1907) (a misidentification)
Helorus corruscus auct. nec Helorus coruscus Haliday, 1857 (misidentification)
Helorus meridionalis Pschorn-Walcher, 1955 (p. 247)
Helorus striolatus Townes, 1977 (nec Cameron, 1906) (misidentification)

Townes (1977) has synonymized the taxa Helorus meridionalis and Helorus striolatus. However, he did not study the type specimen of Helorus meridionalis and only relied on the text of the original description. I have doubts about this synonymization for the following reasons:
(1) The taxon Helorus striolatus has been described from Pakistan, relatively far away from the type locality of Helorus meridionalis (Italy). Thus, it is not necessarily identical with any European species of Helorus and may instead refer to an Asian Helorus species.
(2) The antennal morphology is important in Helorus species identification. The data given for Helorus striolatus in Townes (1977) do not match those of Helorus meridionalis given by Pschorn-Walcher (1955). The following table summarizes these differences in the values for the length/width ratio of the first and second flagellar segments:

I therefore argue that the conclusive resolution of this matter awaits the study of the types of both taxa (however, the type of H. striolatus is reported to be damaged (the head is missing; Townes 1977)). For the time being, I accept both taxa as separate bona species: H. striolatus occuring in Asia, and H. meridionalis distributed in Europe.

The Spanish specimens of this species reported in Van Achterberg (2006) (but under the name H. striolatus) might belong to a separate taxon (see below).

The scutellum is always smooth, whereas it is usually punctated in Helorus anomalipes. The specimens from Spain reported by Van Achterberg (2006) (misidentified as H. striolatus) differ from all other specimens by a strongly punctated vertex and a more robust (compact) pterostigma; these might be a separate Spanish species.

Distribution
Recorded for Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Finland. The records from Mongolia and Pakistan refer to Helorus striolatus, which is possibly a separate species in Asia (see also Synonyms above). However, the records of H. striolatus in Van Achterberg (2006) from Bulgaria, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Lithuania, Spain and the Ukraine, likely really refer to H. meridionalis. The records for south Russia and Turkey given in the same work are less clear, and might be genuine H. striolatus. The record of H. striolatus from Israel given in Townes (1977) is unclear to me, since the labels of these specimens in the collection in Washington apparently only say "Sh. Neumark". If this is referring to a locality, then it is unclear to me why Townes (1977) locates this in Israel. Apart from a number of villages in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic named Neumark, there is the former "Neumark" region now being the region overlapping the border between Germany and Poland. This locality would fit much better the known distribution of H. meridionalis, than a location in Israel.
Germany: Brandenburg and Berlin, Nordrhein-Westfalen.



Biology
Adults have been collected in June to October. The species parasitizes in lacewings (Neuroptera), so far the following host have been recorded: Dichochrysa flavifrons, and Chrysopa pallens (=C. septempunctata). The record of a lepidopteran larva as host for Helorus meridionalis is certainly an error.

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