Up to 1909, the date of publication of the volume on Chalcididae in the Genera Insectorum, the genus Elasmus, Westw., was considered to be distributed only in Europe and America. In his list of species Schmiedeknecht mentioned only a single Asiatic species, E. anticles, Walk., from India, and no Australian or African species. At that date two other oriental species were already known, the one described, but not named, by Zehntner from Java (1900), and the other from the Philippine Islands, E. philippinensis, Ashmead (1904).