Hylaeus (Prosopis) pictipes (Nylander)

Weissmann, Julie A., Picanco, Ana, Borges, Paulo A. V. & Schaefer, Hanno, 2017, Bees of the Azores: an annotated checklist (Apidae, Hymenoptera), ZooKeys 642, pp. 63-95 : 73-74

Hylaeus (Prosopis) pictipes (Nylander)

Description.

Small black bee (wing length 3.5 mm, total length c. 5 mm) with elongate face, yellow face patterns, and black mandibles (Fig. 5b, d, 6c); groove (fovea) alongside inner eye margin curved towards lateral ocelli (cf. Falk and Lewington 2015, p. 81).

Distinguishing features.

Smallest Hylaeus in the Azores, male with yellow face pattern exceeding insertion point of antennae, female face pattern with two small trapezoidal yellow spots; legs of males mainly yellow.

General distribution.

Eurasia, from Portugal to the Caucasus.

Distribution in the Azores.

Corvo, Faial, Flores, Graciosa, Pico, São Miguel.

First record.

1938 (first mentioned in Warncke 1992b).

Nesting.

Builds nests in pithy stems or uses existing cavities (e.g., hollow twigs, holes of wood-boring beetles).

Social behaviour.

Solitary.

Foraging.

Polylectic, observed on Ranunculaceae ( Ranunculus cortusifolius ) (Fig. 6d) and Asteraceae ( Solidago azorica , Helminthotheca echioides ).

Phenology.

June-August.

Material.

Faial (Horta), 30.06.-05.07.1938, 1 female, leg. Richard K. H. Frey; Pico (Madalena), 6-9.07.1938, 1 male, leg. Ragnar Storå; Pico (Madalena), 6-9.07.1938, 1 female, leg. Richard K. H. Frey; S. Miguel (San Roque), 21.07.1938, 1 male, leg. Richard K. H. Frey, all det. and coll. Warncke (Linz). Corvo, 3 males; Graciosa (rim of Caldeira), 1 male; Pico ( São Roque), 2 females, all leg. H. Schaefer, coll. TUM (B3-B7, B44).

The COI sequence of specimen H. Schaefer B6 (TUM), acc. no. KX824777, differs in 1-7 positions from the five Hylaeus pictipes sequences from Spain and Germany in GenBank (see Fig. 2).