Panurginus Nylander, 1848

Romankova, Tatiana G. & Astafurova, Yulia V., 2011, Bees of the genus Panurginus in Siberia, Far East of Russia, and Allied Areas (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae, Panurginae), Zootaxa 3112, pp. 1-35 : 2-3

Genus Panurginus Nylander, 1848

Panurginus Nylander, 1848: 223 . Type species: Panurginus niger Nylander, 1848 , monobasic.

Small (4–12 mm), black, poorly pubescent bees; males often with yellow on clypeus and parts of legs. Episternal groove completely absent. Propodeal triangle has at least minute hairs laterally. First recurrent vein is close to first submarginal crossvein (basad to distad from) ( Michener, 2007).

The genus Panurginus was established by Nylander (1848) for the Siberian species P. niger . Holarctic in distribution, Panurginus was known by 20 species in the Old World ( Patiny, 2003) and 18 species in the nearctic region ( Hurd, 1979; Michener, 2007); 7 more species are described herein from the temperate areas of Asia.

Though these small, dark colored bees from the first glance appear uniform, they often possess some bright and stable specific characters: e.g., shape of clypeus (usually obtuse, latero-apical angles can be slightly (female of P. romani ) or greatly protruded (male of P. arsenievi sp. n); shape of basal plate of labrum (usually transverse, flattened dorso-ventrally, twice wider than long, at P. c r a w f o rd i it is longitudinal or knob-like); shape and proportions of antennal or tarsal segments. For identification of males, the ventral side of metasoma shows fine specific characters, and specifically modified apexes of pregenital sterna and genitalia can be used for identification even without taking metasomal segments apart.

Although the black body of both genders, and yellow clypeus and parts of legs of male are the most common patterns among the palearctic species, males of some xerophilic forms from Middle and Central Asia bearing more yellow on head (labrum, scape) or other body parts (e.g., P. m o r a w i t z i Friese, P. semiopacus F. Morawitz ); yet males of some species have black clypeus (in the studied fauna not represented).

As a rule, the body pubescence of most species is unremarkable, short and sparse, longer on head, mesosoma and sometimes on metasomal sterna; hairs are white, with warm tint on the tergal fimbriae. However, some south Siberian species differ by their more plentiful pubescence, which cover even marginal zones of metasomal terga, which are usually impubescent ( P. alpotanini sp. n., P. m i k n o sp. n. and P. k o z l o v i sp. n.).

The pattern of microsculpture on particular parts of the body (e.g., mesepisterna, T1–T3, propodeal triangle) is usually very much helpful for the keying of species. Females have relatively smooth clypeus with deep pits a few diameters apart on disc, and dense to confluent on periphery; only one species ( P. kropotkini sp. n.) has variant clypeal surface: shagreened (covered with a closely-set, fine, irregular roughness), with deep pits merged to confluent creating longitudinal grooves. In all studied species the genal area along the eye impunctate and shiny.

Panurginus bees nest in the ground and visit a wide variety of flowers; sometimes they become oligolectic on Brassicaceae , which is very unusual among bees ( Michener, 2007).