Centrispyropyga ( Spinola, 1841 )

Vivallo, Felipe, 2023, The primary types of some species of Centris bees described by European entomologists in the 18 and 20 centuries (Hymenoptera: Apidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 864, pp. 1-27 : 20

Centrispyropyga ( Spinola, 1841)

Hemisiapyropyga Spinola, 1841: 148 (junior synonym of C. nobilis Westwood, 1840 ).

Type data

Spinola described this species using a single female specimen. The holotype is currently housed at MSNT (not examined).

Type locality

French Guiana: Cayenne.

Embrik Strand

Embrik Strand (1876–1947) was a Norwegian botanist, entomologist, arachnologist and naturalist. Between 1901 and 1903, he worked as curator in the Museum of Zoology of the Universitetet i Kristiania, currently Universitetet i Oslo (University of Oslo), Norway. Later he moved to Germany to continue his studies in zoology. In Norway, Strand worked at different museums and universities until 1923, when he moved to Latvia. There he worked as professor of zoology at the Rīgas Universitāte, currently Latvijas Universitāte (University of Latvia) ( Natvig 1944). Specimens of the Strand’s collection can be found in the Zoological Museum of the University of Oslo, and in the ZMB. Strand passed away in Riga, Latvia, aged 71.

Strand’s Centris bee

Strand described a single taxon in Centris , the variety C. sponsaasuncionis Strand, 1910 . The description was based on specimens collected by the Hungarian pharmacist, biologist, botanist and researcher János Dániel Anisits (1856‒1911). Anisits migrated to Paraguay after he graduated as a pharmacist in Budapest ( Vivallo 2020d). In this country he worked actively, collecting biological material and discovering several new species, mainly plants ( Magyarország és Latin-Amerika 2019).

This variety remained forgotten until it was cited by Moure et al. (2007) as junior synonym of C. sponsa Smith, 1854 . Despite the similarity between them, they seem to be different species. Here, it is proposed to withdraw C. sponsaasuncionis from the synonymy of C. sponsa , revalidate it and raise it to species level.