The taxonomic identity of Anthidium fasciatellum Friese, 1917 (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthidiini)

Abstract

ABSTRACTAnthidium fasciatellum, described in 1917 by Heinrich Friese on the basis of a single female, has long been regarded as a synonym of Trachusa laticeps (Morawitz, 1873). Examination of a new series of specimens from Turkey shows that the two taxa overlap in many characters, but both males and females are clearly distinct in some features of the colour pattern and in the fine structure of the mandibles. None of nine morphometric characters of the head examined alone allowed the two species to be distinguished, but in a multivariate discriminant analysis the combination of these parameters revealed conspicuous differences, especially in the shape of the head; 96.2% of all specimens could be classified correctly with the help of these metric parameters. Anthidium fasciatellum Friese, 1917 should be regarded as a valid species: Trachusa fasciatellum (Friese, 1917), comb. nov. While T. laticeps has an almost circum-Mediterranean distribution, it is replaced in the eastern Mediterranean by T. fasciatellum, which is endemic to Turkey and probably to some eastern Aegean islands of Greece. Archianthidium laticeps ssp. anatolicum Mavromoustakis, 1939, is placed as a synonym of Trachusa fasciatellum (syn. nov.).www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:755E60D9-E2D6-4956-B4D1-619DAA73EBD9