Stenoheriades Tkalců, 1984

Müller, Andreas & Trunz, Vincent, 2014, Palaearctic osmiine bees of the genera Hofferia and Stenoheriades (Megachilidae, Osmiini): biology, taxonomy and key to species, Zootaxa 3765 (2), pp. 175-186 : 180-181

Genus Stenoheriades Tkalců, 1984

Eleven species distributed in the Palaearctic and the Afrotropical regions (including Madagascar) with five and six species, respectively. Six Afrotropical species are still undescribed ( Michener, 2007). The Palaearctic distribution range of Stenoheriades encompasses Morocco, southern Spain and Sicily, southeastern Europe to easternmost Turkey and southern Turkey to the Levant and the Arabian peninsula.

Heriades integra Benoist, 1934 , is treated as a member of the genus Stenoheriades by Griswold (1985, 1994) and Ungricht et al. (2008). Unfortunately, the male holotype originating from northernmost Morocco could not be located at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle Paris. However, the original description lists several characters, such as spined axilla, lack of a transverse carina between vertical and horizontal part of tergum 1 and rounded tergum 7, which exclude its membership in Stenoheriades . Instead, these characters solely apply to Osmia (Hoplosmia) scutellaris Morawitz, 1868 , rendering the name Heriades integra syn. nov. a junior synonym of Osmia scutellaris .

No morphological characters are known so far to differentiate between the males of S. asiatica , S. coelostoma and S. levantica , raising the question whether the male types of S. asiatica might be conspecific with S. coelostoma or S. levantica . As females of a Stenoheriades species have been collected near the type locality of S. asiatica ( Nur mountains, Hatay province, Turkey; Friese, 1921), which neither belong to S. coelostoma nor S. levantica , the Stenoheriades species with mandibles of normal shape, a shallow impression at the clypeal margin and a basal tubercle on the labrum (see identification key) is most probably S. asiatica . This assumption is in line with the currently known distribution range of S. coelostoma and S. levantica , which is—compared with S. asiatica —more western and more southern, respectively (see species accounts). The clarification of the species identity of S. asiatica renders the information about the geographic range of S. asiatica given by Ungricht et al. (2008) erroneous: S. asiatica neither occurs in Europe nor in western Turkey but ranges from central to easternmost Turkey. The Stenoheriades species that is distributed in southeastern Europe and western Turkey is S. coelostoma , which has been erroneously synonymized with S. asiatica by Griswold (1994).