Centris morsei Cockerell, 1897

Fig. 23

Centris morsei Cockerell, 1897b: 355 .

Junior synonym of C. (Paracentris) caesalpiniae (Snelling 1974) .

Type data

This species was described based on a single metander male collected by the American entomologist specialist in Orthoptera Latreille, 1793 Albert Pitts Morse (1863–1936) at Mesilla, New Mexico State on June 28, 1897. The holotype (Fig. 23) is housed at NMNH and has the following data label: Mesilla. N.M. June 28. A.P. Morse. [handwritten]\ C. morsei, Ckll Type. [handwritten]\ [red label] Type No. [printed] 5096 [handwritten] U.S. N.M. [printed]\ [yellow label] USNM ENT 00534205 [barcode] [printed]\\ DO NOT REMOVE SI DB Reference Not a property tag T. Schultz NMNH [printed].

Type locality

United States: New Mexico State: Mesilla (“bed of the Rio Grande”).

In the description of C. caesalpiniae, Cockerell (1897a) also mentioned a female collected by S. Steel on May 17, but it is not clear whether it belonged to the type series of the species. However, that specimen was not found in the collections visited during this research.

Moure et al. (2007) mentioned the existence of a type series of C. morsei, but this cannot be inferred from the original description or from the label of the specimen housed at NMNH. In this collection, another male was found with the following data label: [red label] ♂ [handwritten] Type No [printed] 5096 [handwritten] U.S. N.M. [printed]\ C. morsei Mesilla. June 30. at fls. of Helianthus ciliaris A. P. Morsei [handwritten]. Although this specimen bears a red label of type, it is not part of the type series because the date of collecting is different from that cited in the original description, and it also has a flower record not mentioned by Cockerell (1897b).