There has been no study on the chitin structure of wasp species. Here, we selected the three most common wasp species belonging to the family Vespidae for chitin extraction and characterization. Chitin was isolated from each wasp species and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), elemental analysis (EA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The chitin contents of Vespa crabro, Vespa orientalis, and Vespula germanica were 8.3, 6.4, and 11.9%, respectively. The crystalline index (CrI) values for the chitin extracted from each species were 69.88, 53.92, and 50%, respectively. The most important finding of the study is that although the same method was used to extract chitin from each of the three wasp species, the degree of acetylation was different: for V. crabro and V. orientalis it was 96.85 and 99.82% (the chitin was extremely pure), respectively, whereas that for V. germanica the chitin was 79.83%.

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Introduction: Chitin is a biopolymer that forms the exoskeleton of arthropods, and is found in the cell walls of fungi. It has a wide range of uses in fields such as cosmetics, pharmacy, medicine, bioengineering, agriculture, textiles and environmental engineering based upon its nontoxic, ecofriendly, biocompability and biodegradability characteristics. Commercially, chitin is obtained from processing the outer skeleton of Crustacea such as shrimp, crab, prawn and crayfish after they have been consumed as food. The study aims to examine the nature of bat guano and to determine if it is a practical source of chitin, which has not been done previously.Results: In this study, the chitin content of dry bat guano samples was found to be 28%. The bat guano, which was collected from Karacamal Cave, came from the bat species Rhinolophus hipposideros. The chitosan yield of this chitin was 79%. The chitin produced from the bat guano was determined to be in the alpha form according to Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results. The crystallinity of the chitin and chitosan samples was calculated as 85.49 and 58.51% respectively by X-ray crystallography (XRD) experiments. According to scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrographs, the chitin and chitosan structures were shaped like nanofibers. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results showed that both chitin and chitosan had two step weight losses, which are characteristic of these materials. The nitrogen content of the chitin and chitosan was 6.47 and 7.3% respectively according to the elemental analysis results. Conclusions:In this research, it has been observed that bat guano can be considered to be an alternative source of chitin and chitosan to crab, shrimp, crayfish and krill.

Berinda is a small genus of the family Gnaphosidae (Araneae) known only from the East Mediterranean. Up to now three species were known, namely B. amabilis Roewer, 1928, B. ensigera (O.P.-Cambridge, 1874), and B. aegilia Chatzaki, 2002, all recorded from the Greek islands (B. amabilis is also recorded from Uzbekistan and Turkey) and the mainland (B. ensigera). In this paper we revise the genus adding new records of the previously recorded species and a new synonymy for B. ensigera (Haplodrassus grazianoi Caporiacco, 1948) and describe two new species, one found on the island of Cyprus, B. cypria Chatzaki & Panayiotou n.sp., and one found in Kayseri, Central Anatolia, Turkey, B. hakani Chatzaki & Seyyar n.sp., thus leading to a total of five species included in this genus.

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