Notes on Southeast Asian Stingless Bees of the GenusTetragonula(Hymenoptera: Apidae), with the Description of a New Species from Thailand

Michael S Engel,Yuvarin Boontop,Charles D Michener

doi:10.1206/3886.1

Abstract

ABSTRACT A new species of stingless bee (Apinae: Meliponini) is described from workers and two males recovered from nests in tree trunks in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand. Tetragonula (Tetragonula) malaipanae, new species, resembles T. (T.) laeviceps (Smith), T. (T.) pagdeni (Schwarz), T. (T.) testaceitarsis (Cameron), and similar species, but is particularly similar to T. (T.) drescheri (Schwarz). Unlike T. drescheri, the new species lacks a defined black stripe on the underside of the metafemur, has the metatibia reddish brown to testaceous (rather than uniformly chestnut brown, and black with a yellow mark on the inner surface in T. drescheri). Characters of the uncommonly encountered T. (T.) sarawakensis (Schwarz) are also recorded.

Highlights

It is well known that the concentration of stingless bee (Apinae: Meliponini) diversity resides within South and Central America (Schwarz, 1948; Moure, 1951; Michener, 1990, 2007, 2013)
The male taken 12 March 2008 at nest number 11 differs from the male described above as follows: integument of head and mesosoma black; scape and pedicel reddish brown; legs dusky pale brown; meso- and metatarsi and distal parts of tibiae black¬ ish, palest areas on outer and posterior surfaces of protibia and basal parts of meso- and metatibiae; metasoma reddish brown with vague transverse dusky areas, apical terga darker; membranous midventral genital process not evident
In Sakagamis (1978) key based on workers, T. malaipanae runs best to T. laeviceps or T. sarawakensis

Summary

INTRODUCTION

It is well known that the concentration of stingless bee (Apinae: Meliponini) diversity resides within South and Central America (Schwarz, 1948; Moure, 1951; Michener, 1990, 2007, 2013). The largest group of Indo-Australian “ Trigona” has been placed in Tetragonula Moure, recognized in particular by the combined presence of a basal sericeous area on the inner metabasitarsal surface and the projection of the mesoscutellum over the propodeum (Moure, 1961; Sakagami, 1978). This group was characterized by Moure (1961) and Sakagami (1978), and has been treated as a subgenus of Trigona by Sakagami (1978), or as an outright genus by Moure (1961), Rasmussen (2008), Michener (2013), and the present authors. We provide a characterization of the species here along with a few anecdotal notes on the occurrence of these nests in the hope of encouraging continued work on the biology of the species

MATERIAL AND METHODS

DISCUSSION