Euandrena Hedicke, 1933

Wood, Thomas James, 2023, Revisions to the Andrena fauna of north-western Africa with a focus on Morocco (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 916 (1), pp. 1-85 : 6

Subgenus Euandrena Hedicke, 1933

Wood (2023) identified a new species of Euandrena from the Sierra Nevada mountains in southern Spain ( Andrena isolata Wood, 2023 ) that has black and orange pubescence and which consequently morphologically resembles A. bicolor Fabricius, 1775 , but which is strongly distinct genetically. The sequence was closest to a sequence from the Moroccan Middle Atlas; an additional sequence from Tunisia is now available. The Moroccan and Tunisian sequences were separated by 0.38% and formed a clade with a bootstrap support of 97 ( Fig. 2 ). The sequences from the Middle Atlas and Tunisia were separated from A. isolata by an average genetic distance of 5.08% (range 4.89–5.26%), and specimens show small morphological differences that are detailed below. They were also separated from A. bicolor by an average of 9.21% (range 8.27–10.53%). They are described below as Andrena abscondita sp. nov., distinct from both A. bicolor and A. isolata .

Additional sequences were generated from specimens also resembling A. bicolor from the Anti-Atlas Mountains in south-western Morocco. These sequences were strongly separated from A. bicolor by an average of 8.49% (range 7.89–9.40%). They formed a clade basal to the A. bicolor sensu lato clade (see Praz et al. 2019) with a bootstrap support of 100. When considering only A. bicolor sequences from Morocco, average separation was slightly higher at 8.83% (range 8.27–9.40%). This taxon from the Anti-Atlas is therefore described below as Andrena berberica sp. nov. on the basis of this genetic distance, as well as morphological differences that are given below. Therefore, three Euandrena species can be found in Morocco with the general colouration pattern of A. bicolor ; A. abscondita sp. nov., A. berberica , and A. bicolor , illustrating the problems within this subgenus highlighted by Wood (2023; see also Praz et al. 2019; Pisanty et al. 2022a).

Figures

Fig. 2. Phylogenetic tree (maximum likelihood) of Andrena subgenera Chrysandrena Hedicke, 1933 and Euandrena Hedicke, 1933 based on the mitochondrial COI gene. Numbers adjacent to branches represent bootstrap support (values of <75 are omitted).