Bombus marussinus Skorikov
Creators: name: Williams, Paul H.
name: Huang, Jiaxing
name: Rasmont, Pierre
name: An, Jiandong
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Apidae
Bombus
Bombus marussinus

description: 5. Bombus marussinus Skorikov
(Figs 15, 28, 55, 60)
<Bombus mendax> subsp. marussinus Skorikov 1910b:330, type-locality citation (Cyrillic) ‘[East Pamir]’. Lectotype queen by present designation ZISP examined, (Cyrillic) ‘[Shugnan, Pamir]’ (Pamir, Tajikistan). Note 1.
[Bombus mendax var. aberrans Skorikov 1910b:330, infrasubspecific.]
Mendacibombus mendax subsp. marussinus (Skorikov); Skorikov 1914:124.
Mendacibombus marussinus (Skorikov); Skorikov 1923:149; Skorikov, 1931:215; Tkalců 1969:192.
[Bombus mendax marussinus aberrans Skorikov; Reinig 1930:100, infrasubspecific.]
[Bombus mendax marussinus aberrans zonatus Reinig 1930:101, infrasubspecific.]
Bombus (Mendacibombus) mendax Subsp. marussinus Skorikov; Richards 1930:634.
Bombus mendax marussinus Skorikov; Reinig 1932b:158.
Bombus (Mendacibombus) marussinus Skorikov; Reinig 1932a:258; P.H. Williams 1991:44; P.H. Williams 1998:99; P.H. Williams 2004:no. 28; Suhail et al. 2009:3 [not seen].
[Bombus (Mendacibombus) marussinus f. aberrans Skorikov; Reinig 1932a:258, infrasubspecific.]
[Bombus (Mendacibombus) marussinus f. zonata Reinig; Reinig 1932a:258, infrasubspecific.]
Bombus marussinus Skorikov; Reinig, 1934:172; Sabir et al. 2011:161 [not seen].
Bombus (Mendacibombus) marussinus <subsp.> afghanus Reinig 1940:230, type-locality citation ‘ Chodja-Mahomed’ (Kwaja Muhammed, Badakhshan, Hindu Kush, Afghanistan). Syntype queen and male presumed lost by Tkalců 1969.
Note 1 (marussinus). Skorikov’s original description of the taxon marussinus cites the type locality as east Pamir. The ZISP collection studied by Skorikov contains a queen that agrees with the original description and carries the labels: (1) white, printed (Cryrillic) ‘[r. Toguz-bulak / V. Shugnan, Pam. / Makarin] 24/27.VI 09.’; (2) white, printed (Cyrillic) ‘[k. Skorikova]’; (3) white, handwritten in pencil ‘[illegible] / N 14’; (4) red, handwritten ‘ Lectotypus Bombus / mendax subsp. / marussinus Skor. / design. Podbolotsk. ’ (M. Podbolotskaya, unpublished); (5) green, printed ‘ Mendacibombus / MD# 736 det. PHW’; (6) red, printed ‘ LECTOTYPE [female] / Bombus mendax ssp. / marussinus / Skorikov, 1910 / det. PH Williams 2012’; (7) white, printed ‘[female] Bombus / (Mendacibombus) / marussinus / det. PH Williams 2012’. This specimen, which is complete, is regarded as one of Skorikov’s syntypes (others may have existed, it is unclear) and is designated here as the lectotype in order to reduce uncertainty in the identity and application of the name.
Etymology. The species may be named after a Russian entomologist, P. Marusin, from Tashkent (A. Byvaltsev, in litt.).
Taxonomy and variation. The single composite COI sequence supports this as a separate species (Fig. 11). The interpretation of this taxon as a separate species is also supported by the distinct form of the female labrum and of the male genitalia. This disagrees with earlier concepts (Tkalců, 1969), diagnosed originally in terms of the colour pattern of the hair (Skorikov, 1910b), because the species appears to be not as easily diagnosable by colour (cf. B. avinoviellus) as originally understood.
All specimens have yellow and none has white hair on the thoracic dorsum or a black band between the wing bases. Skorikov (1910b) described females of the taxon marussinus s. str. from the Pamir (MD#736) as having the corbicula framed with light hairs, with T1‒2 light yellow, the side of the thorax yellow above and whitish below, and the ventral side of the metasoma light (yellow). The palest specimens from the Pamir have T2 almost white (MD#1191).
For some specimens from further south in the Hindu Kush there is variation in the replacement of yellow with black on T2 and on the lower side of the thorax (Reinig’s taxon afghanus) although we have no COI sequences (from the taxon marussinus s. str.) from which to confirm this. Geographically associated males with the two colour patterns share the same diagnostic form of the male genitalia. The form of the female labrum is also diagnostic in grouping the taxa together. These specimens are interpreted as conspecific, as parts of the species B. marussinus s. l. (all of our COI sequences come from specimens from Pakistan with this dark colour pattern: MD#407, 408, 410).
Tkalců (1969) subsequently applied the name Mendacibombus afghanus to a series of specimens from the Karakorum that, in addition to the dark hair of T2, have darker wings and predominantly black hair on T6 (as opposed to predominantly orange for B. marussinus), treating them as a separate species. These darker Karakorum specimens (but not those with a similar colour pattern from the Hindu Kush) are interpreted here as likely to be conspecific with B. avinoviellus (see the comments on that species).
Diagnostic description. Wings nearly clear (cf. B. avinoviellus). Female hair colour pattern: generally black, but with yellow hair in a large patch below the base of the antenna, in a small patch on the vertex of the head, on the entire thoracic dorsum (at most with an obscure small round patch of black hairs between the wing bases, cf. B. himalayanus) and extending laterally and ventrally to half way down the side of the thorax, or to all of the way to the midleg base, on T1, on T2 anteriorly and medially or sometimes all of T2 except for a few black hairs intermixed medially along the posterior margin, T3 varying from orange only as a narrow posterior fringe to orange except for some black hairs anteriorly, and T4‒6 orange, except T6 usually dominated medially by long black hairs. Hindleg tibia with the corbicular fringes often appearing double: hairs on the corbicular surface and in the adjacent fringes are usually black, sometimes with orange tips, but exterior to this, the hair in the outer fringes (anteriorly and posteriorly) may be black or yellow (cf. B. himalayanus, B. avinoviellus). Female morphology: labrum with the basal depression narrow, the transverse ridge broader medially than the basal depression, in the median third convex throughout, not subsiding completely or interrupted and with only a few scattered medium punctures, the lateral tubercles smooth with very few punctures (Fig. 15) (cf. B. himalayanus, B. avinoviellus). Clypeus in its central half with few scattered punctures, almost as many large as small punctures (cf. B. avinoviellus). Male morphology: genitalia (Fig. 28) with the volsella distally rounded (finger-shaped) and curled back dorsally but not anteriorly; volsella at its broadest near the midpoint of its length, the dorsal surface just distal to this point without a raised curved ridge just inside the inner margin; volsella with the apex broad, broader than the adjacent penisvalve head, but with the apex narrowly produced and finger-like. Gonostylus from the dorsal aspect almost triangular, without a distinct outer distal corner but broadly rounded. Penis-valve inner shoulder located at Ĺ 0.5× the length of the penis valve from the distal end to the broadest point of the spatha; penis valve proximal to the outer shoulder <2× as broad as the penis-valve head; penis-valve breadth just proximal to penis-valve head 0.11× the length of the penis valve distal to the broadest point of the spatha.
Material examined. 9 queens 86 workers 17 males, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan (Fig. 60: NHM, PW, RMNH, UMONS, ZISP), with 3 specimens sequenced (interpretable sequences listed in Figs. 1 1–13).
Habitat and distribution. Flower-rich alpine grassland (not seen by us), at elevations 2800‒(3787)‒ 4500 m a.s.l.. A species of the Pamir, Hindu Kush, and Karakorum mountains. There is some overlap with B. makarjini in the Pamir, there is some overlap with B. turkestanicus in the Pamir and Hindu Kush, and there is some overlap with B. himalayanus in the northwestern Karakorum, but in these cases the two seldom occur together. A regional distribution map is available for Kashmir (P.H. Williams 1991).
Food plants. No records.
Behaviour. No records.
description: Published as part of Williams, Paul H., Huang, Jiaxing, Rasmont, Pierre & An, Jiandong, 2016, Early-diverging bumblebees from across the roof of the world: the high-mountain subgenus Mendacibombus revised from species' gene coalescents and morphology (Hymenoptera, Apidae), pp. 1-72 in Zootaxa 4204 (1) on pages 40-41, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4204.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/192302