Ctenoplectra chalybea Smith, 1857

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 : 14-15

7. Ctenoplectra chalybea Smith, 1857

Fig. 6

Ctenoplectra chalybea Smith, 1857: 45 , ♀.

Type material examined

Holotype

MALAYSIA • ♀; M. Ophir 72 [ Mount Ledang ]; [ 13 Jul.–25 Sep. 1854]; OUMNH, ENT-HYME2459 .

Other material examined ( Ctenoplectra australica )

AUSTRALIA • ♀, holotype; Claudie R., N.Q. [ North Queensland]; Nov. 1912 – Feb. 1914; Dr Macgillivray leg.; NMV (examined by photograph) .

PAPUA NEW GUINEA • 1 ♀; New Guinea; 8 Oct. 1898; L. Bíró leg.; T.J. Wood det.; MSNG .

Type locality

Malacca (Mount Ophir) [= Mount Ledang].

Notes

Baker (1993: 194) wrote the following:

“A ♀ in the UMO type collection, labelled ‘M. Ophir. 72’ [white disc] and ‘ Ctenoplectra chalybea [rule] Smith’ [blue paper, Smith] is the HOLOTYPE of this species and it has now been labelled accordingly. A second specimen in the same collection, labelled ‘Mak’ [Makassar; blued disc] and ‘ Ctenoplectra chalybea Smith’ [blue paper, Smith] can have no type status and is not conspecific. [This specimen is referable neither to the Philippines species vagans Cockerell, 1904 (in which the ocelli are unusually small) nor to the N. Bornean representative of this group (in which the basal flagellar segments are of different proportions).] Ctenoplectra apicalis Smith, 1879 [ HOLOTYPE ♂ B.M. Type Hym. 17 a 1840, Birmah 1 5 7 6: Mrs Waring], is possibly the ♂ of chalybea (the ‘marginal bands’ of the terga, described by Smith, were not natural, being an irregular encrustation, readily soluble in alcohol, probably the result of post-mortem decomposition)”.

The female from Makassar is the basis of Smith’s record ( Smith 1860a: 91), with this species later described as C. elsei Engel, 2007 based on a manuscript name from Baker and NHMUK material ( Engel 2007); it is endemic to the island of Sulawesi. Ctenoplectra apicalis was synonymised with C. chalybea by Sung et al. (2009). The “N. Bornean representative” mentioned by Baker was described as C. sandakana Sung, 2009 based on NHMUK material separated as distinct by Baker ( Sung et al. 2009).

Finally, the records of C. chalybea reported from New Guinea by Friese (1909: 207) are considered to belong to C. australica Cockerell, 1926 who described the species from northern Queensland ( Cockerell 1926: 513). The holotype is stored in the NMV collection (K. Walker pers. com.), and images of the type were examined online. A specimen collected by the Hungarian Lajos Bíró was found in the MSNG collection, matching both Cockerell’s description and images of the holotype. The records of Friese from Erima and Stephansort in Austrolabe Bay and Simbang on the Gulf of Huon (probably around modern day Lae) collected by Bíró from eastern Papua New Guinea (hopefully still present in the Budapest museum) would therefore be referable to C. australica given the eastern range limit of C. chalybea in Peninsula Malaysia. The records of C. chalybea from Kalidupa Buton in this same work ( Friese 1909: 208) certainly refer to C. elsei .

Current status

Ctenoplectra chalybea Smith, 1857 .

Distribution

India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia (Peninsula), China, Taiwan ( Sung et al. 2009; Anandhan et al. 2024; Ascher & Pickering 2024).