Andrena (Pallandrena) morosa Cameron, 1897

Gautam, R. K., Uniyal, V. P. & Wood, Thomas J., 2024, A critical revision of the Andrena Fabricius, 1775 of India, with the description of two new species (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae) from Uttarakhand, European Journal of Taxonomy 948, pp. 1-59 : 35-37

24. Andrena (Pallandrena) morosa Cameron, 1897

Andrena morosa Cameron, 1897: 119 , ♀ [ India: Uttarakhand, NHMUK, examined].

Andrena burkelii Bingham, 1908: 363 , ♀ [ India: Himachal Pradesh, ZSI, examined by photograph] syn. nov.

Listed by

Bingham (1897); Cameron (1897); Bingham (1908, as A. burkelii ); Tadauchi & Matsumura (2007); Meena & Dey (2019); Ascher & Pickering (2023).

Type material

Holotype

INDIA • ♀; Masuri [Mussoorie]; NHMUK.

Other material examined

INDIA • 1 ♀; Simla , Matiana; ZSI; ZSI0000008659 (syntype of A. burkelii ) .

NEPAL • 1 ♀; Nawakot , Langtang Khola, Ghora Tabela; 3200 m a.s.l.; 3 Oct. 1982; C. Holzschuh leg.; OÖLM .

Remarks

Gusenleitner & Schwarz (2002) did not place A. morosa within a subgenus, and Tadauchi & Matsumura (2007) placed it within Andrena s. str. Fabricius, 1775. Examination of the holotype ( Fig. 15 ) shows that it presents a strongly emarginate process of the labrum, and the ventral pollen-collecting hairs of the tibial scopae are long and strongly plumose. This strongly suggests placement in the subgenus Pallandrena Warncke, 1968 , members of which are associated with the family Geraniaceae which has large pollen grains, necessitating sparse plumose scopal hairs. Indeed, the hind legs of the type specimen are covered in large grains that are visible to the naked eye ( Fig. 15D ). We therefore place A. morosa into the subgenus Pallandrena , and hypothesise that it will be caught on Geranium or related genera in the future.

Andrena burkelii was described from Matiana from an altitude of 8000 feet. Bingham mentioned that it had a body length of 12 mm, and that it was unlike any other species of Andrena he had examined. Possible type depositories were discussed by Wood (2024b), but examination of the ZSI website revealed type material in that collection. Examination of the photographed female specimen (possibly automatically the holotype, but it is unclear how many specimens are included in the type series) shows that it displays the same characters (particularly the same body size, pubescence, and decoloured tergal margins) as A. morosa , and indeed the hind tibial scopae are completely covered in the same large pollen grains. Within the Western Himalayas, the locus typicus of Matiana is only 100 km to the north-west of Mussoorie, the locus typicus of A. morosa . We therefore synonymise A. burkelii with A. morosa syn. nov.

Distribution

India (Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand) & Nepal *.

Figures

Fig. 15. Andrena (Pallandrena) morosa Cameron, 1897, syntype, ♀ (NHMUK). A. Label details. B. Habitus, lateral view. C. Face, frontal view. D. Terga and hind leg, dorso-lateral view.