Megachile lachesis Smith, 1860

Wood, T. J., Risch, S., Orr, M. C. & Hogan, J. E., 2025, An illustrated type catalogue of the bee species collected by Alfred Russel Wallace and described by Frederick Smith from Southeast Asia (Hymenoptera: Apoidea), European Journal of Taxonomy 1028, pp. 1-144 : 88-90

57. Megachile lachesis Smith, 1860

Fig. 56

Megachile lachesis Smith, 1860b: 133–134 , ♀.

Type material examined

Lectotype

INDONESIA • ♀; Bac. [Bachian]; [ 21 Oct. 1858 – 13 Apr. 1859]; OUMNH, ENT-HYME2814-01 ( lectotype designated by Lieftinck 1958).

Paralectotype

INDONESIA • 1 ♀; Amb. [Amboyna]; [ 30 Nov. 1857 – 4 Jan. 1858]; OUMNH, ENT-HYME2814-02 .

Type locality

Bachian [= Bacan], Amboyna [= Ambon]. Fixed as Bacan by lectotype designation.

Notes

Baker (1993: 212–214) wrote the following: “Five conspecific specimens standing as lachesis in the UMO type collection are labelled:-

a) ♂, ‘G’ [?, reading uncertain,? Gilolo; white disc] and ‘ Megachile Lachesis. Smith. ’ [blue paper, Smith],

b) ♂, ‘Cer. E.’ [presumably Ceram, East; white disc] and ‘ M. Lachesis ♂?’ [blue paper, Smith]. c) ♀, ‘ Megachile Lachesis. Smith. ’ [blue paper, Smith].

d) ♀, ‘Bac.’ [white disc], ‘ Megachile Lachesis Smith’, ‘ Megachile lachesis Sm. Mitchell - 1956’, and ‘ Lectotype O.U.M.’ [red-margined disc],

e) ♀, ‘makes round holes in clayey ground Bouru’ [Wallace] and ‘ Megachile Lachesis Sm’ [blue paper, Smith].

A sixth specimen, (f), found among miscellaneous megachilids in another part of the collections, is labelled ‘Amb’ [white disc, Wallace] and ‘ Megachile Lachesis Smith’ [blue paper, Smith].

The two ♂♂ and the Bouru ♀ (e) cannot be regarded as syntypes, and although the ♀ (c) could represent one of the missing localities [Mysol or Salwatty] it would not be safe to assume that it did in fact do so ( C. frontalis is an abundant and widely-distributed species): all four specimens have therefore been labelled as of no type status. The ♀♀ (d) from Bachian and (f) from Amboyna are regarded as syntypes and Mitchell’s labelling of the former as LECTOTYPE of lachesis may be accepted. The specimen is intact but shows mite infestation”.

Theodore B. Mitchell did not publish on Megachile in the Eastern Hemisphere after 1956 (see bibliography in Michener 2007), and published no lectotype designation for M. lachesis . The white disc indicating the island of Bacan seems to have disappeared, but the specimen is clearly the one indicated by Baker (e.g., mites are present on the specimen, Fig. 56D). Although well-reasoned, Baker did not mention the important work by Lieftinck (1958). In this, Lieftinck traced the original Fabrician male specimen of Anthophora frontalis Fabricius, 1804 [= Megachile frontalis ] from Ambon Island ( Habitat in Amboina Mus. Dom. Billardiere ), this specimen being present in Fabricius’s collection in Kiel, Germany. This material is now in the Copenhagen collection on indefinite loan from Kiel since 1958 ( Zimsen 1964; van Roie et al. 2024; M. Kuhlmann pers. com.). Lieftinck notes that Friese (1909: 241) already suggested the provisional synonymy of M. lachesis with M. frontalis , but that no-one had attempted to corroborate this.

Lieftinck visited the OUMNH collection in October 1955 and compared contemporary specimens from Batjan [= Bacan], Halmahera, and Ambon with the type series defined as “ 3♀ from Batjan, Buru and loc. incert., 2♂ from Ceram and “S”, with which they all agreed”. These five specimens match the five described by Baker. Lieftinck (1958: 464) stated “The ♀ from Batjan at Oxford (white labels “Bac” and ditto identification label of F. Smith) is herewith designated as the lectotype of lachesis F. Smith ”. Even though the specimen was not labelled by Lieftinck, although it may have been him who added the red circular lectotype disc, the description of the specimen he gave is sufficient to allow recognition of this precise specimen ( ICZN 1999 Article 74), and his designation can be accepted as valid.

Baker’s omission of Lieftinck’s (1958) designation is curious, because he was clearly aware of this work, citing this paper within the chresonomic list for Megachile foliata Smith, 1860 and also in the overall references for the thesis ( Baker 1993: 95, 215).

Current status

Megachile ( Creightonella) frontalis ( Fabricius, 1804) ( Lieftinck 1958; Michener 1965; Ascher & Pickering 2024).

Distribution

Philippines, Indonesia ( Sulawesi, North Maluku, Maluku, Papua s. lat.), Papua New Guinea ( Ascher & Pickering 2024), expanding to the west if M. atrata Smith, 1853 is considered conspecific ( Lieftinck 1958; Baker 1993).