Megachilidae (Eutricharaea) apicalis Spinola, 1808

Zarrillo, Tracy A., Stoner, Kimberly A. & Ascher, John S., 2025, Biodiversity of Bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila) in Connecticut (USA), Zootaxa 5586 (1), pp. 1-138 : 126

Megachilidae (Eutricharaea) apicalis Spinola, 1808

Apical Small-Leafcutter

Notes: A single female was captured on its non-native host plant, spotted knapweed ( Centaurea stoebe ), by C. T. Maier on 22 August 2009 in North Haven (New Haven County) near a stand of deciduous trees adjacent to a railway line in a degraded industrial area. This species has also been detected in Michigan (Gibbs et al. 2017a) and Illinois (Gruver & CaraDonna 2020) visiting C. stoebe in similar disturbed habitats near rail lines, and Gibbs et al. (2017a) and Gruver & CaraDonna (2020) suggest non-native plants such as C. stoebe might be facilitating the spread of M. apicalis . This species is relatively well known in New York City (https://www.inaturalist.org/ observations?place_id=48&subview=map&taxon_id=335714) and New Jersey (https://www.inaturalist.org/ observations?place_id=51&subview=map&taxon_id=335714) but it has only recently been detected in New England including Massachusetts, with new state records in 2022 from Middlesex and Suffolk Counties (https:// www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=2&taxon_id=335714). Megachile apicalis was likely first detected in the United States in Virginia in 1931 (Mitchell 1962) and has since been documented for Canada (Sheffield et al. 2011), British Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Montana (Kuhlman & Burrows 2017) , California (Cooper 1984), Pennsylvania (Donovall 2010), Ohio (Sivakoff et al. 2018), Illinois (Gruver & CaraDonna 2020) and Missouri (Camilo et al. 2017). Future targeted surveys in urban, industrial, highly disturbed areas, especially along railway lines, in Connecticut and elsewhere are warranted to monitor the spread of this non-native species.

Material examined. New Haven Co.: North Haven:“ 0.28 km S jct.Sackett Point Road and Universal Drive”,

41.36506 -72.87088, 22 August 2009, coll. C. T . Maier, 1 ♀, CAES, det. J.S. Ascher, UCMS _ ENT 00082080 .