The bee genus Borgatomelissa Patiny, 2000 (Anthophila: Andrenidae: Panurginae) with the description of a new species from northern Oman, and a key to species

ABSTRACT

The bee genus Borgatomelissa Patiny, 2000 (Anthophila: Andrenidae: Panurginae) is found across North Africa, the Sahel, and throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Using both morphology and DNA barcodes, a new species, B. samailensis sp. n., is described from Oman, increasing the known number of species to four. Due to the holotype of B. brevipennis Walker, 1871 being lost, we designate a neotype from a specimen collected from Oman. Additionally, new country records are documented herein for B. flavimaura Ortiz-Sánchez and Patiny, 2019 and B. brevipennis, based on specimens housed in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London and Biologiezentrum Linz, Austria. A key to the species in the genus is given.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:6C01C20B-AA12-4021-83FC-A91634EB492C

KEYWORDS:

• Arabian Peninsula
• Middle East
• identification key
• DNA barcodes

Acknowledgements

We thank the Omani Environment Authority for their assistance in granting the permits to collect insects in Oman and export them to the UK. We also thank the reviewers for their thorough and informative contributions. We thank Dr Thomas Wood for alerting us to the presence of the Syrian specimen of B. flavimaura in the collection of the Biologiezentrum Linz, Austria. Finally, we thank Esther Ockermüller, Head of Entomology at Biologiezentrum Linz, for loaning us the specimen.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.