The taxonomic identity of Anthidium fasciatellum Friese, 1917 (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthidiini)

ABSTRACT

Anthidium fasciatellum, described in 1917 by Heinrich Friese on the basis of a single female, has long been regarded as a synonym of Trachusa laticeps (Morawitz, 1873). Examination of a new series of specimens from Turkey shows that the two taxa overlap in many characters, but both males and females are clearly distinct in some features of the colour pattern and in the fine structure of the mandibles. None of nine morphometric characters of the head examined alone allowed the two species to be distinguished, but in a multivariate discriminant analysis the combination of these parameters revealed conspicuous differences, especially in the shape of the head; 96.2% of all specimens could be classified correctly with the help of these metric parameters. Anthidium fasciatellum Friese, 1917 should be regarded as a valid species: Trachusa fasciatellum (Friese, 1917), comb. nov. While T. laticeps has an almost circum-Mediterranean distribution, it is replaced in the eastern Mediterranean by T. fasciatellum, which is endemic to Turkey and probably to some eastern Aegean islands of Greece. Archianthidium laticeps ssp. anatolicum Mavromoustakis, 1939, is placed as a synonym of Trachusa fasciatellum (syn. nov.).

www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:755E60D9-E2D6-4956-B4D1-619DAA73EBD9

KEYWORDS:

• Anthidiini
• Anthidium
• Greece
• taxonomy
• Trachusa
• Turkey

Acknowledgements

For the loan of material, I wish to thank Maximilian Schwarz (Ansfelden, Austria) and the curators and staff of Ministry of Agriculture (Mavromoustakis collection), Nicosia, Cyprus (Mrs Despina Philippou), Naturkundemuseum Berlin, Germany (Dr Frank Koch), Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut, Müncheberg, Germany (Dr Andreas Taeger, Andrew Liston), Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt, Germany (Patricia Peters) and Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Linz, Austria (Fritz Gusenleitner). Jelle Devalez, Melissotheque of the Aegean (Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, Lesvos, Greece), kindly provided information on the species in Greece and Dr Yasemin Güler (Plant Protection Central Research Institute, Ankara, Turkey) provided information on a specimen from Turkey. Dr Adrian Pont kindly improved the manuscript linguistically. I wish to thank all of them.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.