Centris geminata Cockerell, 1914

Vivallo, Felipe, 2020, The bees of the genus Centris Fabricius, 1804 described by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (Hymenoptera: Apidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 618, pp. 1-47 : 15

Centris geminata Cockerell, 1914 nom. rev.

Fig. 9

Centris nitida geminata Cockerell, 1914: 315–316 .

Type data

Cockerell described this subspecies apparently based on a single female specimen collected by the American entomologist and naturalist Charles Thomas Brues (1879–1955), specialist on Hymenoptera, Diptera and on insect diet ( Salt 1955), during a trip to South America. Moure et al. (2007) indicated that it was described from syntypes. Nevertheless, only a single female with original Cockerell’s label of “type” was found at NMNH. Due to the lack of evidence on the existence of more type specimens and the impossibility to deduce this fact from the original description, the female housed at NMNH is here interpreted as holotype, taking into account the information of the Cockerell’s own label. The specimen ( Fig. 9 ) has the following data label: Guayaquil. Ecuador, May-June 1913. C. T. Brues [printed]\ [red label] Type No [printed] 54855 [handwritten] USNM [printed]\ Centris nitida geminata Ckll Type [handwritten]\ [yellow label] USNM ENT 00534196 [barcode] [printed]\\ DO NOT REMOVE SI DB Reference Not a property tag T. Schultz NMNH [printed].

Type locality

Ecuador: Guayas Province: Guayaquil.

Comment

This species was mistakenly proposed as a junior synonym of C. facialis Mocsáry, 1899 ( Rasmussen & Vivallo 2014), a species superficially similar. The study of large series of both species allowed to revert the proposed synonymy and to consider both as valid species. Females of C. geminata and C. facialis differ in the coloration of the prepygidial fimbriae, yellowish in the former and dark brown or blackish in the latter species. The males of both species differ in the size and pubescence of the hind femur (slightly larger than the hind tibia and covered by whitish pubescence on the dorsal surface in C. geminata ; evidently larger than the hind tibia and covered completely by dark brown to black pubescence in C. facialis ).

Figures

Fig. 9. Centris nitida geminata Cockerell, 1914, holotype, ♀ (NMNH; USNM ENT 00534196). A. Frontal view. B. Habitus, lateral view. Scale bars: A = 1 mm; B = 2 mm.