Megachile cyanipennis Guerin-Meneville 1845
Creators: name: Dorchin, Achik
name: Praz, Christophe J.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Megachilidae
Megachile
Megachile cyanipennis

description: cyanipennis species group
Description: This group is one of the two main groups recognized in Pseudomegachile, the second being the flavipes species group. Following phylogenetic results from Trunz et al. (2016), the group includes both Afrotropical species and Palaearctic species such as M. saussurei and M. nigripes, and exhibits a wide variation of sizes and morphological structures (Table 1). In the Palaearctic the group includes medium-sized to large species and shares the following female characteristics in addition to those mentioned in the key: mandible weakly 4- toothed, sometimes teeth 3 and 4 indistinct (Figs 10–12); clypeus transversely concave on anterior third, apically truncate and usually slightly flared, with weak medial preapical protuberance (Figs 10–12, 137, 151); vertex relatively short, the ocelloccipital distance about 0.7 times as long as the interocellar distance to about as long. The integument is predominantly black, frequently with pale brown or yellow (fading to white) semi-erect hairs on the thorax and with conspicuous, complete apical hair bands on the tergites, comprising modified, appressed scale-like hairs (Figs 135, 149). Male characteristics additional to those mentioned in the key are: front coxal spine developed, short to long; preapical carina of T6 with evenly spaced short teeth, usually with a symmetrical median emargination and without lateral tooth (a small lateral tooth is present in M. saussurei and M. syriaca sp. nov.) (Figs 147, 158); T7 variable in form, produced into short or long apicomedial spine, trifid, or broadly truncate; sternites 5 and 6 with dense sclerotized capitate and spatulate hairs, the hairs so dense that hairs are covered by overlapping hairs, and with apicolateral tufts of long branched hairs (Figs 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88); S5 with apicomedian convexity and erect quadrangular spine extending beyond margin (Figs 72, 75, 78, 81, 84, 87); disc of S6 triangular separate from swollen lateral lobes at each side (Figs 73, 76, 79, 82, 85, 88); S8 broad, oblong, compared to slender, spear-shaped in the flavipes species group, usually with fine hairs on posteroventral surface and with only few long hairs on dorsal basolateral margins (Figs 97, 101); gonoforceps slender basally, gradually or strongly broadening posteriorly then strongly tapering apically, often with apex laterally compressed in dorsal view (Figs 98, 102); gonoforceps preapically with coarse branched hairs directed mesally and some finer but conspicuous hairs on apex (Figs 98, 102); integument black and vestiture frequently pale brown or yellow, forming conspicuous apical hair bands on metasomal tergites, as in female.
In addition to the species mentioned here, Megachile chinensis Radoszkowski 1874, of which a syntype is preserved in ISZP, also belongs to this group. This species, which has a comb of modified hairs on clypeus, supraclypeal area and frons does not occur in the western Palaearctic to our knowledge.
description: Published as part of Dorchin, Achik & Praz, Christophe J., 2018, Taxonomic revision of the Western Palaearctic bees of the subgenus Pseudomegachile (Hymenoptera, Apiformes, Megachilidae, Megachile), pp. 251-307 in Zootaxa 4524 (3) on pages 281-282, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4524.3.1, http://zenodo.org/record/2610526