The Type Material of Swedish Bees (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) I
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Ent. Tidskr. 128 (2007) Type material of Swedish bees The type material of Swedish bees (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) I. L. ANDERS NILSSON Nilsson, L.A.: The type material of Swedish bees (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) I. [Typmaterial av svenska bin (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) I.] – Entomologisk Tidskrift 128 (4): 167-181. Uppsala, Sweden 2007. ISSN 0013-886x. Sweden with Carl von Linné is the cradle of Systematics and therefore also the origin of a disproportionate part of the taxonomic type material. Bees are no exception. This report is the first part of an examination, including taxonomic revision, of the actual, re- puted or potential bee type material of Swedish origin. Focus is on the status, type locality, present condition, depository and history. Here, a total of 20 original specific taxa have been studied. Lectotypes are designated for 13 whereby it is stated that seven epithets are valid (bold), viz. Andrena cincta Nylander 1848, A. clypearis Nylander 1848, A. subopaca Nylander 1848, Coelioxys temporalis Nylander 1848, Colletes suecica Aurivillius 1903, Halictus sexnotatulus Nylander 1852, Heriades breviuscula Nylander 1848, Kirbya mel- anura Nylander 1852, Megachile apicalis Nylander 1848 which replacement name Mega- chile analis Nylander 1852 has the same type, Nomada cincticornis 1848, N. obtusifrons Nylander 1848, Prosopis armillata Nylander 1848 and Rhophites halictulus Nylander 1852. Especially, Kirbya melanura is found to be a senior synonym of Cilissa wankowiczi Radoszkowski 1891. The valid name of the species is Melitta melanura (Nylander) and its type locality the island of Gotland in the Baltic. L. Anders Nilsson, Department of Plant Ecology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Villavägen 14, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden, E-mail: anders.nilsson@ebc. uu.se. Introduction 1984, Ander 1967, Svensson 1979, Løken & al. Universality and stability in scientific names re- 1994, Anonymous 1996), Halictus and Lasio- quire that any legitimately published taxon has a glossum (Ebmer 1976, 1982, 1988), Hylaeus (Er- fixed and recognized status. Sweden’s early great landsson 1981), Osmia (Tkalců 1983) and No- role in Systematics resulted in a relatively large mada (Schwarz 1986a-c). Meanwhile, revisions number of original descriptions of bee species are lacking for many taxa. In such cases original being based on material collected from this coun- material has never been re-studied or found in try (e.g. Linné 1758, 1761, 1767, Dahlbom 1832, the museums. Zetterstedt 1838, Nylander 1848, 1852a, 1852b, All bee taxa based on Swedish material, Thomson 1870, 1872). This material is presently whether re-studied or not, have been subject to in a highly diverse state in relation to modern tax- taxonomical considerations manifested in the onomy where type concepts play a central role. leading international literature (e.g. Warncke There are a number of more or less modern revi- 1986, Schwarz & al. 1996). The recently started sions of one or more species in certain genera, national project on all of Sweden’s multicellular e.g. Coelioxys (Erlandsson 1955), Sphecodes species has necessitated an examination of which (Kjellander 1959), Bombus (Løken 1966, 1973, material is actually name-bearing and providing 167 L. Anders Nilsson Ent. Tidskr. 128 (2007) 1742: 97). Between 1758 and 1767 Linné de- scribed 31 valid Swedish bee species (including of course the honeybee Apis mellifera), making up roughly 10% of the currently known national bee fauna. A still enigmatic species, viz. Apis ry- byensis, was described a few years later (Linné 1771). Most of Linné’s authentic material in- cluding insects was purchased by sir J.E. Smith and shipped to England in 1784. The collection is now with the Linnean Society at Burlington House in Piccadilly, London. The British taxon- omists soon realized the collection’s value as no- menclatural rectifyer. The first to study Linné’s Swedish bees was Kirby (1802), followed by Smith (1851), Richards (1935) and Day (1979). Two Nordic researchers have studied material after it left Sweden, viz. the Finnish (later fa- mous botanist) William Nylander (1822–1899) in June–July 1851 (Norrlin 1913), and the Nor- wegian bumblebee specialist Astrid Løken (b. Figur 1. Carl Henrik Boheman. After a military ca- 1911) in the early 1960’ies. Day (1979) carried reer in Jönköping, where he had attained the rank of out the fixation of a name-bearing type of most captain in 1838, Boheman took on with “iron dili- of Linné’s bee species. gence” (Stål 1873) to arrange and enlarge the insect The Dane Johann Christian Fabricius collections in the Museum of Natural History, Stock- holm. His immense collecting was pivotal for the ear- (1745–1808) was Linné’s student in Uppsala ly exploration of the Swedish bees. Courtesy of Bert 1762–1764 and became the next to describe new Viklund, NHRS. species from Swedish bees, viz. Melitta haem- orrhoidalis and Bombus lapponicus (Fabricius 1775, 1793). According to a generic survey valid names. The present report is the first part with species numbers by Carl Fredrik Fallén of a critical examination of the actual, reputed or (1764–1830), the number of known bee spe- potential type material of Swedish bees. cies in Sweden was 101 (Fallén 1813). Impor- The purpose of the work was manifold. First, tant contributions were made by Anders Gus- to examine and if necessary, on the basis of tav Dahlbom (1806–1859), who monographed ICZN (www.iczn.org/iczn, ICZN 1999), revise the Scandinavian bumblebees in 1832 (adding any taxonomical status of the material. Second, Bombus consobrinus and B. balteatus), and Jo- to provide lectotype designations of previously han Wilhelm Zetterstedt (1785–1874). In 1838 unrevised taxa. Third, to state the type locality, Zetterstedt described six new species of solitary original labelling, condition and identity of type bees from mainly northern sites and mentioned specimens. A short survey of the scientists and in all 124 bee species from Sweden. By the mid their numerical Swedish contributions is pro- 19th century young William Nylander in Hel- vided here. sinki became the authority of North European bees and received material both from Dahlbom History at the Zoological Museum in Lund and Carl Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778, from 1757 by the Henrik Boheman (1796–1868, Fig. 1) at the name of C. von Linné) started the bee fauna re- Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. In a search in this country. In 1742 he published a complete Fennoscandian treatment published in list briefly describing 14 bee species (interpreta- 1848 and after visiting several European muse- tion by LAN). These had been found during his ums including the one in Stockholm 1850–1851 student years in Uppsala 1728–1734 (Linnaeus and finally revising his previous work, Nylander 168 Ent. Tidskr. 128 (2007) Type material of Swedish bees (1852a, 1852b) supplied the descriptions of 15 to the respective institutions, through loans or new species from material of Swedish origin. by other means. The abbreviations of the cor- He reported that (by 1851) the total number of responding institutions mentioned in the present known bee species in Sweden was 152. This paper are: number increased in 1854 by the description BMNH = Natural History Museum, London of Bombus cingulatus from Norrbotten by Pe- (former British Museum), ter F. Wahlberg (1800–1877, less famous than LSL = Linnean Society, London, his younger brother Johan August (1810–1856) NHRS = Swedish Museum of Natural His- who financed natural history expeditions in Af- tory, Stockholm, rica by ivory hunting and was eventually killed ZMH = Zoological Museum, Helsinki, by an elephant. Johan August’s trampled, bro- ZML = Zoological Museum, Lund, and ken gun is exhibited at the Swedish University ZMU = Museum of Evolution, Uppsala (for- of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala). mer Zoological Museum, Uppsala). The last substantial number of bee species The taxonomical status, type locality, original described from material of Swedish origin was labelling, quality and identity of the name-bear- presented by Carl Gustaf Thomson (1824–1899), ing specimen or other qualified material were Sweden’s no doubt most skilful, sharp-eyed (us- examined on the basis of the current nomencla- ing a 18X microscope!) and productive insect tural rules (i.e. ICZN 1999). taxonomist. With his contribution (1869, 1870, The examined taxa in the present paper have 1872, 1888), a further 12 species were added and been arranged alphabetically below each family. the number of known bee species was national- The families of bees follow Michener (2000). ly elevated to 211. Since Thomson’s days, only three valid specific taxa have been described Results from Swedish material: Panurginus romani by For easy access of the essential results on each Aurivillius (1914), Lasioglossum boreale by taxon the information has been organized into Svensson & al. (1977) and Osmia svenssoni two paragraphs. The first consists of a single by Tkalců (1983). Also a few subspecific taxa sentence with five parts due to semicolon divi- from Swedish material have gained acceptance, sions. Principally, the parts mention the taxo- e.g. Bombus pascuorum gotlandicus described nomical status, type locality, original labelling, by Erlandsson (1953). The number of known quality and identity of the name-bearing speci- bee species in Sweden is 294 (L.A. Nilsson un- men or other type material primarily examined, publ. check-list September 2007). The increase respectively. Specifically, the 1st part lists the from southern species has lately been