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Abstract
The joannisi and seeleyi groups of Neocorynura are rarely collected bees found at high altitudes (≥2000 m) in the Andes from Venezuela to Peru. We review the species of the joannisi group and provide new geographical records and taxonomic comments for the species of the seeleyi group. We recognized a total of nine species in the joannisi group; in addition to N. joannisi (Vachal) and N. micheneri (Eickwort), the following seven new species are described and illustrated: N. aymara sp. nov., N. carolinae sp. nov., N. caucana sp. nov., N. puruhana sp. nov., N. tungurahuana sp. nov., N. toromaima sp. nov., and N. wanuca sp. nov. We also provide an identification key to all of the species.
Acknowledgements
We want to thank the curators, collection managers and staff members of the collections listed in the Material and Methods who loaned the specimens. We are indebted to m.S. Engel who kindly assembled the borrowed material for study. We also thank D. Bennett for providing the photographs, m.S. Engel, J. Thomas and Z. Falin for access to bee specimens at SEMC, and C.D. Michener for continuous advice and support; K. Huntzinger, J. Koch, A. Aguiar, and two anonymous reviewers provided valuable comments on the manuscript.