Euaspis aff. wegneri Baker, 1995

Nalinrachatakan, Pakorn, Ascher, John S., Kasparek, Max, Traiyasut, Prapun, Thanoosing, Chawatat & Warrit, Natapot, 2023, A review of the anthidiine bees (Apoidea, Megachilidae) in Thailand, ZooKeys 1186, pp. 235-284 : 235

Euaspis aff. wegneri Baker, 1995

Fig. 11

Euaspis wegneri Baker, 1995: 290, figs 24, 31 (♀). Holotype from “BATJAN” [= Bacan, north Maluku, Indonesia] (NBC, not examined).

Material examined.

1♀. Thailand: Chumporn (new record?), Sawi District, Na Sak Subdistrict (10°10'10.7"N, 98°56'50.5"E), 1 Jun. 2021, Suntaree Kanchananiyom. (PMCS: SK-BSRU-0068 [association number with CUNHM]) .

Distribution.

Indonesia (Bacan province in north Maluku [= Batjan (in Dutch) in Baker (1995)], Thailand (Chumporn, new record?).

Diagnosis.

This female Euaspis aff. wegneri has a typical black body and reddish metasoma, with a pale yellow stripe on the mesonotum (Fig. 11B ) resembling Eu. strandi (pale yellow marginal band on scutellum, more minute on axilla). Clypeus moderate in size, somewhat confused punctures, while the punctures on the scutellum are coarser than on scutum. Female S6 (Fig. 11D, E ) subacute with obscured basal platform contributing almost half of the length of S6 while the apical half of S6 forming faint median carina, lateral margin with small, obscured, blunt teeth. In contrast, yellow maculation in mesosoma is absent in the holotype of Eu. wegneri (see Baker 1995: figs 24, 28, 31) and has more fine and dense punctures on the scutum and scutellum, while S6 seems to be more acute.

Floral associations.

Unknown.

Remarks.

Euaspis wegneri has been described on the basis of a single female and has never been reported after that. The holotype of Eu. wegneri represented with monochrome digitization in Baker (1995: figs 24, 28, 31, for S6, face, and mesonotum, respectively) arguably has a black mesosoma, with more fine and dense punctures on scutellum compared to scutum. Here, we decided to put this Thai specimen as Eu. aff. wegneri since the other characters are comparable especially on S6 which is distinctive for each Euaspis species. Other characters can be considered variations, although S6 of the holotype seems to be more acute. With the possibly new species noted in Soh et al. (2016) (also noted in the Eu. polynesia section above), we consider that examination of more specimens coupled with molecular analyses are needed in order to resolve the true identity of these enigmatic specimens.

Figures

Figure 11. Female of Euaspis aff. wegneri Baker, 1995 A face B dorsal habitus C lateral habitus D, E S 6. Scale bars: 2 mm (B, C); 1 mm (D, E); 0.5 mm (A).