Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2021 | 13(2): 17841–17842

 

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) 

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6501.13.2.17841-17842

#6501 | Received 30 July 2020 | Final received 19 October 2020 | Finally accepted 20 February 2021

 

 

 

First report of Lipotriches (Rhopalomelissa) parca (Kohl, 1906) (Halictidae: Nomiinae) from India

 

Bhaswati Majumder 1 , Anandhan Rameshkumar 2 & Sarfrazul Islam Kazmi 3

 

 1–3 Zoological Survey of India, Prani Vigyan Bhawan, M-Block, New Alipore, Kolkata, West Bengal 700053, India.

 1 bhaswati94rai@gmail.com, 2 drrameshtrichy@gmail.com (corresponding author), 3 kazmizsi@gmail.com

 

 

Editor: Anonymity requested.            Date of publication: 26 February 2021 (online & print)

 

Citation: Majumder, B., A. Rameshkumar & S.I. Kazmi (2021). First report of Lipotriches (Rhopalomelissa) parca (Kohl, 1906) (Halictidae: Nomiinae) from India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 13(2): 17841–17842. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6501.13.2.17841-17842

 

Copyright: © Majumder et al. 2021. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

 

Funding: Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF & CC), Zoological Survey of India.

 

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: The authors are thankful to Dr. Kailash Chandra, Director, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata for providing facilities and encouragement.  We are thankful to Dr. Alain Pauly, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Belgium, for his continuous support and valuable suggestions to our studies.

 

 

 

Bees under the subfamily Nomiinae (Halictidae) are solitary except for a few species that build nests in large aggregations.  These bees are distributed in the Afrotropical, Oriental, Australian, Palaearctic, and Nearctic regions except in the Neotropical region (Batra 1966; Michener 2007; Astafurova 2013).  Lipotriches Gerstaecker is one of the largest genera of Nomiinae, known by roughly 350 species globally and 45 species under six subgenera from India (Ascher & Pickering 2021).  Pauly (2009) studied the Oriental Lipotriches and provided the key to species with their distributions.  Later, Pannure & Belavadi (2017) reported 11 species from southern India.  The present study is based on unidentified collections present in the Hymenoptera section, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.

Bees belonging to the genus Lipotriches were sorted from the unidentified collection and processed with standard protocols.  The specimen was examined and photographed under a Leica M205A stereo zoom microscope.  Species identification was done with the help of Pauly (2009, 2014, 2020) and Michener (2007).  The voucher specimen is deposited in the National Zoological Collection, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

 

Family Halictidae Thomson, 1869

Subfamily Nomiinae Robertson, 1904

Genus Lipotriches Gerstaecker, 1857

 

Lipotriches (Rhopalomelissa) parca (Kohl, 1906)

(Image 1)

Nomia parca Kohl, 1906, male, female.  Lectotype male: Aden, XII.1898, leg. O. Simony, NMV, désigné par Pauly, 1990: 165.

Material examined: (Reg. No. 23408/H3), 16.xi.2013, 01 female, India, Rajasthan, Ganganagar, Manjuvas (29.532N & 73.435E), Sweep net, coll. Gaurav Sharma.

Female description: Length 8mm.  Body brownish to dark brown, covered by  pubescence; head quadrate (length: width 2.3mm: 2.2mm); vertex, paraocular area, ocello ocular area and vertex finely punctated; lateral ocelli surrounded by punctation; vertex not carinate; scape 6× as long as wide; scape, pedicel and F1 brown; F2–9 dorsally brownish-yellow, ventrally pale yellow; apical segment of antennae pale orange; face fully covered with grayish bristles; margin of scutum covered with grayish bristles; mesoscutum densely punctuated; tegula opaque, small, ovate, brownish; scutellum not obscured by pubescence; felted metanotum; propodeum with scattered grayish bristles; hind tibia and hind basitarsus 2.5mm long, with white bristles, with little branching and tapered; fore wing length 7mm, width 2.2mm; apical lobe strongly smoky; hind wing length 5mm, width 1.6mm; hyaline; veins brown; metasomal tergites with dense punctation except T1 which is T1 fairly less punctated.

Distribution:  India: Rajasthan (new record).  Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Libya, Sahara Desert, Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen (Pauly 2014).

Comments: Lipotriches parca is closely related to L. postcarinata but differs in the following features: apical lobe of fore wing is strongly smoky; body covered by grey pubescence in L. parca (vs. fore wing is uniformly infuscate and without grey pubescence in L. postcarinata).  L. parca is mainly recorded from arid regions from both Africa and Asia, although there is also one closer checklist record from Pakistan (Ascher & Pickering 2021).  The biology and ecology of L. parca is unknown and requires further study.

 

For image - - click here

 

References

 

Ascher, J.S. & J. Pickering (2021). Discover life Bee species guide and world checklist (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila). Accessed on 19th February, 2021. Online at: http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?guide=Apoidea_species

Astafurova, Y.V. (2013). Geographic distribution of halictid bees of the subfamilies Rophitinae and Nomiinae (Hymenoptera, Halictidae) in the Palaearctic. Entomological Review 93(4): 437–451.

Batra, S.W.T. (1966). Social behavior and nests of some nomiine bees in India (Hymenoptera, Halictidae). Insectes Sociaux 13(3): 145–153.

Kohl, F.F. (1906). Zoologische Ergebnisse der Expedition der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften nach Südarabienund Socotra im Jahre 1898–1899. Hymenopteren. Denkenschriften der Kaiserlischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 71: 169–188.

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Pannure, A. & V.V. Belavadi (2017). An updated distributional checklist of Bees of the subfamily Nomiinae (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Halictidae) with new records from south India. Entomon 42(4): 311–328.

Pauly, A. (2009). Classification of Nomiinae from the eastern region, New Guinea and the Pacific Islands (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Halictidae). Entomology 79: 151–229.

Pauly, A. (2014). Les Abeilles des Graminées ou Lipotriches Gerstaecker, 1858, sensu stricto (Hymenoptera : Apoidea : Halictidae : Nomiinae) de la Région Orientale. Belgian Journal of Entomology 21: 1–94.

Pauly, A. (2020). Atlas Hymenoptera - Halictidae. Accessed on 15th October, 2020. http://www.atlashymenoptera.net/Halictidae.html