Centris obscurior Michener, 1954

Vivallo, Felipe, 2023, Taxonomic notes on the primary types of some species of Centris bees described by some entomologists from the Americas (Hymenoptera: Apidae), Iheringia, Série Zoologia (e 2023003) 113, pp. 1-18 : 4-5

Centris obscurior Michener, 1954

Centris (Centris) obscurior MICHENER, 1954: 138 .

Type data. This species was described from a large series of specimens of both sexes collected on Cornutia grandiflora Steud. ( Lamiaceae ) at Canal Zone, Panama. The holotype female and a paratype male were found at AMNH, and another couple of paratypes at NMNH. Holotype female with the following data label: [printed] Juan Mina, C.Z. V-14-1945 C. D. Michener [printed]\ [red label] HOLOTYPE [printed] Centris obscurior [handwritten] C.D. Michener [printed] ( AMNH).

Paratype male with the following data label: [printed] Juan Mina, C.Z. V-22-1945 C. D. Michener [printed]\ [red label] ALLOTYPE [printed] Centris obscurior [handwritten] C.D. Michener [printed]\ AMNH _ IZC 00324193 QR code [printed] ( AMNH) .

Paratype female with the following data label: [printed] Juan Mina, C.Z. V-14-1945 C. D. Michener [printed]\ [light yellow label] PARATYPE [printed] Centris obscurior [handwritten] C.D. Michener [printed]\ [light blue label] PARATYPE [handwritten] 61782 [handwritten] ( NMNH) .

Paratype male with the following data label: [printed] Juan Mina, C.Z. VI-22-1945 C. D. Michener [printed]\ [light yellow label] PARATYPE [printed] Centris obscurior [handwritten] C.D. Michener [printed]\ [light blue label] PARATYPE [handwritten] 61782 [handwritten] ( NMNH). Type locality. Panama: Panamá Province: Canal Zone: Juan Mina .

Flamínio Ruiz. Serapio Flamínio Ruiz Pereira was a Chilean priest and entomologist (1883–1942). He spent his youth in Bulnes (Ñuble Province, southern Chile), his natal city, entering in the Army in 1909, when he joined the Mercedary Order ( URETA, 1957). Ruiz was fascinated by nature and due this interest he was translated to Santiago (Metropolitan Region) where he was teacher of Biology and Natural Sciences at Colegio San Pedro Nolasco ( CSPN) for almost three decades ( URETA, 1957). In that institution he funded a museum where he deposited the specimens that he collected in nature. The main collection of the museum was of insects, turning the Chilean bees his favorite group.

Among the articles written by Ruiz, stand out the first and second parts of “Apidología Chilena”, published in 1940 and 1942, respectively. In those articles he studied partially the families Colletidae , Megachilidae and Anthophoridae (= Apidae ). The families Halictidae and Andrenidae were never studied by him as well as most of the melittofauna from northern Chile, apparently due he did not have the chance to know ( TORO, 1986). Ruiz passed away in Santiago, on 8 November 1942, aged 59.

Ruiz’s Centris bee. Ruiz proposed about fifteen new species and varieties of Chilean bees, among them, C. nigerrima var. orellanai Ruiz, 1940 . This supposed variety of C. nigerrima (Spinola, 1851) was described based on females collected by the agricultural engineer Baldomero Orellana (1892‒?), former Director of the Escuela Práctica de Agricultura of Santiago in Los Pelambres, an open pit copper mine located at 3,600 m.a.s.l. in the mountains of the Coquimbo Region, northern Chile. The male identified by Ruiz as belonging to this variety was collected in Punta de Lobos, O’Higgins Region, southern Chile at sea level. That specimen was actually a male of C. nigerrima and this explains the supposed relationship between that species with the variety proposed by him.