Andrena (Cordandrena) cordialis Morawitz, 1877

Wood, Thomas James, Praz, Christophe, Selis, Marco, Flaminio, Simone, Mei, Maurizio, Cornalba, Maurizio, Rosa, Paolo, Divelec, Romain Le & Michez, Denis, 2023, Revisions to the Andrena fauna of Italy, with the description of a new species (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae), Fragmenta entomologica 55 (2), pp. 271-310 : 273

Andrena (Cordandrena) cordialis Morawitz, 1877

Remarks. Andrena cordialis is a typical species of the Pannonian Basin and Eastern Europe to Central Asia. It is therefore surprising to encounter material of this species in Sicily. The specimen collected by Teunissen was provisionally identified by Warncke as A. vaulogeri Pérez, 1895 , a species found in Spain, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. However, this identification was incorrect as the tergal punctures are too sparse. Though A. vaulogeri could have been expected to be present in Sicily due to the known faunal links between this island and north-western Africa, a surprisingly large number of more typically eastern Andrena species are also present (see Results, see Discussion), and hence the detection of A. cordialis fits into this emerging pattern.

Material examined.

ITALY: SICILY: 3♀, 35 km N Gela , NE Piazza Armeri- na, 27–29 May 2002, leg. J. Halada, ( OÖLM) ; 1♀, Pergusa, 9–10 May 1975, leg. H. Teunissen ( OÖLM) .

Distribution. Italy *, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey to the Caucasus and Iran, Central Asia and north-western China ( Gusenleitner & Schwarz 2002; Astafurova et al. 2021; Wood 2021).