Andrena (Andrena) synadelpha Perkins, 1914

Wood, Thomas James, Michez, Denis, Cejas, Diego, Lhomme, Patrick & Rasmont, Pierre, 2020, An update and revision of the Andrena fauna of Morocco (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Andrenidae) with the description of eleven new North African species, ZooKeys 974, pp. 31-92 : 31

Andrena (Andrena) synadelpha Perkins, 1914

Material examined.

Morocco: Fès-Meknès, Ifrane environs, 1700 m, 10.v.1997, 1♀, leg. P. Průdek; South of Azrou, 25.iv.2017, 1♂, M. Snižek, both OÖLM.

Distribution and remarks.

This is a predominantly central and northern European bee, but there are isolated southern populations in upland areas of Spain, Portugal, and Turkey ( Gusenleitner and Schwarz 2002; Wood et al. 2020a). Andrena synadelpha is polylectic, but it prefers pollen from trees and shrubs of broadleaf woodland such as Acer , Rubus , Crataegus , Quercus , Rhamnus , Frangula and Ilex ( Wood and Roberts 2017). Its presence in the Middle Atlas is therefore unexpected, but it has precedence. Andrena haemorrhoa (Fabricius, 1781), another predominantly central and northern European bee which is able to live as far north as the Arctic circle, was also recently found in the Ouled Nail mountains of Algeria at an elevation of 761 meters ( Cherair et al. 2013). It remains to be seen if there are more typically ‘European’ Andrena species that persist in the mountains of North Africa, presumably having been isolated at the end of the Ice Age as the lowland areas of North Africa returned to a more arid climate.