Formicapis Sladen 1916

Müller, Andreas & Mauss, Volker, 2016, Palaearctic Hoplitis bees of the subgenera Formicapis and Tkalcua (Megachilidae, Osmiini): biology, taxonomy and key to species, Zootaxa 4127 (1), pp. 105-120 : 109

Subgenus Formicapis Sladen 1916

Hoplitis excisa ( Morawitz 1880) was treated as a representative of the subgenus Stenosmia by Mavromoustakis (1954), Wu (2006) considered it to be a member of Osmia (Osmia) and Ungricht et al. (2008) assigned it to Hoplitis subgenus incertum. The recent discovery of the hitherto unknown male clearly revealed its affiliation to the subgenus Formicapis . The Central Asian species Hoplitis latifemoralis ( Wu 1985) was formerly considered to belong to Formicapis ( Wu 1985, 2006; Ungricht et al. 2008). Both sexes, however, strongly differ morphologically from H. ( Formicapis ), e.g. in the form of the female mandible, which is narrow and three-toothed lacking the long apical edge typical of Formicapis , or in the shape of male tergum 7, which is quadrangular and medially slightly incised instead of four-lobed as in Formicapis . Furthermore, H. latifemoralis substantially differs from H. ( Formicapis ) species in the form of the male sterna and male genitalia. Due to these differences and the fact that H. latifemoralis possesses some exceptional characters, such as a thickened male hind femur and tibia, the presence of hooked bristles on the female proboscis and the preference for small-flowered Boraginaceae species as pollen hosts ( Müller 2016), H. latifemoralis is removed here from H. ( Formicapis ) and assigned to Hoplitis subgenus incertum.