The tribe Meteorini includes two genera, Meteorus and Zele, which are koinobiont endoparasitoids of larval Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. More than 300 species are known, about one fifth of which occur in the Western Palearctic. Here, we revise the Western Palearctic species, based partly on traditional approaches and partly on molecular analysis of recent Swedish and Finnish material. For the analyses of phylogenetic relationships and cryptic species diversity, we coded 17 morphological characters and sequenced two markers, 28S D2 (649 bp) and CO1 (665 bp). More than 1 970 specimens representing 54 species of Meteorus Haliday and 5 species of Zele Curtis were studied; of these, 177 specimens represent- ing 41 species were sequenced. Seven new species are described, all from the Fennoscandian material: Meteorus artocercus sp. nov., M. densipilosus sp. nov., M. eklundi sp. nov., M. longipilosus sp. nov., M. sibyllae sp. nov., M. stenomastax sp. nov., and M. subtilisulcus sp. nov. Four new synonyms are introduced: Z. chlorophthalmus (Spinola 1808), syn. nov. for M. pallidus (Nees 1812), M. punctifrons Thomson 1895, syn. nov. for M. varinervis (Tobias 1986), M. melanostictus Capron 1887, syn. nov for M. monachae (Tobias 1986), and M. tenellus Marshall 1887, syn. nov. for M. boreus (Tobias 1986). Meteorus tenellus is removed from synonymy with M. cinctellus. Sequence analysis indicated the presence of at least 12 additional cryptic species but these cannot be separated morphologically at this point and, therefore, we do not describe them here. The phylogenetic results suggest that Zele should be included within Meteorus but we refrain from formal changes of the generic classification until more comprehensive phylogenetic analyses of the tribe can be completed. A key to the known Western Palearctic species is presented. 

In Sweden, the parasitic wasp family Braconidae belongs to the top-three species-richest insect families, together with Ichneumonidae (Hymenoptera) and Staphylinidae (Coleoptera). Currently 1089 species are reported from Sweden. The world species of Braconidae are divided into 31 subfamilies and 172 genera. Several new species has been discovered in Sweden within the subfamily Euphoriane (Stigenberg & Ronquist 2011) and there is material enough to increase the Braconidae records up to at least 1500 species in Sweden. Here I present a new genus to Sweden with a distribution covering Sweden from the North to the South. So far 52 specimens of the species Spathicopis flavocephala have been found in Sweden. 

The tribe Meteorini includes only the two genera Meteorus Haliday, 1835 and Zele Curtis, 1832. Material of these genera have been examined in the collections at the Natural history museum in Oslo. Nine species not previously reported from Norway were found, i.e. Meteorus affinis (Wesmael, 1835), M. alborossicus Lobodenko, 2000, M. consimilis (Nees, 1834), M. limbatus Maeto, 1988, M. lionotus Thomson, 1895, M. obfuscatus (Nees, 1811), M. ruficeps (Nees, 1834), M. tabidus (Wesmael, 1835) and Zele annulicrus (Thomson, 1895). This makes the Norwegian number of Meteorus up to 22 and Zele to 5. All European species of Zele are now recorded in Norway. Several new county records are also presented, including records of M. cespitator (Thunberg, 1822), which previously only has been published as Norwegian without any further information. Biology and distribution for each species are briefly discussed. For several species additional information on host associations are given.

The braconid subfamily Euphorinae is a large, cosmopolitan group of endoparasitoid wasps. The majority of species attack adult hosts, a strategy that is rare among parasitic wasps, but there are also many species that attack nymphs and larval stages. Euphorine hosts may belong to a variety of insect orders (Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Neuroptera, Psocoptera, Orthoptera and Lepidoptera) although most euphorine tribes are confined to Coleoptera. Here we investigate the phylogenetic relationships of the Euphorinae based on molecular data (3 kb of nucleotide data from four markers: 18S, 28S, CAD and COI) and propose a higher-level classification based upon the resulting phylogeny. We also infer the evolution of host associations and discuss the diversification of the Euphorinae. Results from both Bayesian inference and maximum-likelihood analysis show that the subfamily, as previously circumscribed, is paraphyletic. We propose that the subfamily be expanded to include the tribes Meteorini and Planitorini (Mannokeraia + Planitorus), so that it corresponds to a clade that is strongly supported as monophyletic in our analyses. Based on our results, a revised higher classification of the Euphorinae is proposed, in which 52 extant genera and 14 tribes are recognized. We reinstate the genus Microctonus belonging to the tribe Perilitini, and synonymize Ussuraridelus with Holdawayella, Sinuatophorus with Eucosmophorus. Furthermore, we propose the following tribal rearrangements: Spathicopis and Stenothremma are transferred to Perilitini; Tuberidelus, Eucosmopho- rus and Plynops to Cosmophorini; Ecclitura to Dinocampini; Chrysopophthorus, Holdawayella and Wesmaelia to Helorimorphini; Proclithroporus and Heia to Towne- silitini. The monotypic tribe Cryptoxilonini is synonymized with Cosmophorini. The genera Pygostolus and Litostolus are placed in a separate tribe, Pygostolini, previously recognized as a subtribe among the Centistini. Parsimony-based ancestral state recon- structions suggest that the ancestor of Euphorinae was a parasitoid of lepidopteran larvae, and that a host shift to larval Coleoptera occurred only in one clade of the Meteorini, some members of which secondarily shifted back to larval lepidopteran hosts. In the remainder of the subfamily, there was an initial shift from larval to adult coleopterans, followed by subsequent shifts to adults or larvae of Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Neuroptera, Orthoptera and Psocoptera. 

Distributional, phenological and in many cases rearing data are given for 44 species of western Palaearctic Meteorinae in the genera Meteorus and Zele, from the nearly 2,500 specimens of the group present in the collection of the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh. Six species are newly recorded from Britain. Patterns in the breadth of host ranges are discussed in relation to a reiterated speciation hypothesis and a recently published molecular phylogeny.

The new gregarious parasitoid Meteorus acerbiavorus sp. nov. (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) was reared from the cocoons of Acerbia alpina (Quensel) (Lepidoptera, Arctiidae) in north-western Finnish Lapland. This species belongs to Meteorus rubens (Nees) species group and differs from the most related M. rubens in the following features: the eyes densely setose; the median lobe of the mesoscutum, scutellum, mesopleuron, and the hind coxa entirely or at least partly rugulose-granulate or rugose-areolate and sometimes with granulation; the ovipositor subapically with distinct dorsal node; the ventral borders of the first metasomal tergum weakly separated by narrow space in its basal half; the colour of the body and legs mostly or entirely dark; the fore wing more or less darkened. Phylogenetic relationships among several Meteorus species close to M. rubens including new M. acerbiavorus were investigated based on DNA sequence fragments of the mitochondrial COI and the nuclear 28S rDNA genes. The discussions on the species groups of Meteorus, on distribution of Acerbia alpina in the Holarctic and on its known parasitoids are presented. 

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