The Neotropical cleptoparasitic bee Mesocheira bicolor (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Ericrocidini) in Argentina

JUAN PABLO TORRETTA; GRAFFIGNA, S.; ALLASINO, M.L.; AVALOS, A.A.; H. J. MARRERO; ÁLVAREZ, L.J

TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY

AMER ENTOMOL SOC

Lugar: Philadelphia; Año: 2024 vol. 150 p. 159 - 164

0002-8320

Mesocheirabicolor (Fabricius) is a cleptoparasite bee, widely distributed in the NewWorld from Mexico to northern Argentina. In Argentina, this species is onlydocumented from Formosa. In this contribution, we report new records of malesand females reared from trap nests obtained from different studies aboutnesting biology of solitary bees in pre-existing cavities in severalArgentinian provinces. Also, we studied material from Argentinean researchcollections, and we searched for occurrence data in the Global BiodiversityInformation Facility. Adults of M. bicolor were reared from nests of Centris(Hemisiella) tarsata and C. (Hemisiella) nigriventris Burmeister. Here, wereported eight new provincial records that widely increase the geographicaldistribution of this species in Argentina, expanding its austral[1]most distributionrecord by more than 1,000 km.