Nomia (Acunomia) melanderi Cockerell, 1906

Portman, Zachary M., Gardner, Joel, Lane, Ian G., Gerjets, Nicole, Petersen, Jessica D., Ascher, John S., Arduser, Mike, Evans, Elaine C., Boyd, Crystal, Thomson, Robin & Cariveau, Daniel P., 2023, A checklist of the bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) of Minnesota, Zootaxa 5304 (1), pp. 1-95 : 77

Nomia (Acunomia) melanderi Cockerell, 1906

Comments: Ribble (1965) reported N. melanderi from Pope County, MN, stating: “I have seen four specimens of m. melanderi labeled Sedan, Minnesota. If these specimens are labeled correctly it seems strange that no specimens of this subspecies have been collected in South Dakota.” We have not been able to examine those specimens and their labels, and the specimens may be mislabeled or misinterpreted. One possibility is that the specimens are from Sedan, Montana, rather than Sedan, Minnesota. Another possibility is that N. melanderi may have been introduced to Minnesota at some point, since N. melanderi was deliberately introduced to different areas of the US and Canada to improve agricultural production ( Ribble 1965, Bohart 1970). As a result of this uncertainty, we are only including this species in the list of possible Minnesota bees, pending further confirmation.