Bombus (Pyrobombus) bryorum Richards, 1930

Williams, Paul H., Dorji, Phurpa, Ren, Zongxin, Xie, Zhenghua & Orr, Michael, 2022, Bumblebees of the hypnorum-complex world-wide including two new near-cryptic species (Hymenoptera: Apidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 847, pp. 46-72 : 60-61

Bombus (Pyrobombus) bryorum Richards, 1930 stat. rev.

Figs 1–2 , 10‒16

[ Bombus hypnorum ] var. [not subsp.] bryorum Richards 1930: 650 , but not infrasubspecific after Tkalců (1974: 328) ( ICZN,1999: Article 45.6.4.1). Holotype by original designation: ♀ (not ♂) Kashmir , India ( NHMUK). Examined.

B. [ombus] fletcheri Richards, 1934: 90 . Holotype by original designation: ♀ Gulmarg , Kashmir, India ( NHMUK). Examined.

[ Bombus (Pyrobombus) hypnorum ( Linnaeus, 1758) – Williams 1991: 70 — Williams et al. 2010: 127, misidentification.]

Bombus (Pyrobombus) bryorum Richards – Williams 2022a: 97 .

Diagnosis

Female

Distinguished by the combination: labral lamella broad and shallowly rounded, almost rectangular; clypeus in the central area with scattered widely-spaced small punctures and the very large punctures spaced by more than 3× their own diameter; ocello-ocular area along the inner eye margin with only one row of larger medium punctures; thoracic dorsum with the hair brown in the centre between the wing bases without black hair.

Male

Distinguished by the combination: hair variable, from the thorax and T1‒4 yellow (western Himalaya), to thorax and metasomal T1‒2 brown and T3‒4 black (eastern Himalaya).

Material sequenced or examined

INDIA • 2 ♀♀ (queens); Kashmir , Gulmarg; 34.0343° N, 74.3678° E; alt. 3100 m; 1986; P. Williams leg.; PW • 2 ♀♀ (1 queen, 1 worker), 1 ♂; Kashmir , Gulmarg; 34.0343° N, 74.3678° E; alt. 3100 m; Aug. 1985; P. Williams leg.; PW • 1 ♀ (worker), 2 ♂♂; Kashmir , Gulmarg; 34.0343° N, 74.3678° E; alt. 2700‒3200 m; 16 Aug. 1980; P. Williams leg.; PW .

NEPAL • 1 ♀ (worker); Karnali, Maharigaon ; 29.337° N, 82.387° E; alt. 3250 m; 8 Jul. 1999; M. Hartmann leg.; BOLD-1550B09-N539 ; NME • 1 ♂; Mahakali, Charmaliya Khola ; 29.746° N, 80.801° E; alt. 3100 m; 10 Jun. 2005; J. Weipert leg.; BOLD-1550B12-N548 ; NME .

BHUTAN • 1 ♀ (queen); Thimpu, Phajoding Gompa ; 27.479° N, 89.595° E; alt. 2850 m; 25 Apr. 2018; J. Smit leg.; sequence-RMNH-1092452; RMNH • 1 ♀ (queen); Wangdue, Phodrang, Dangchhu ; 27.546° N, 90.203° E; alt 3380 m; 5 May 2018; J. Smit leg.; RMNH .

Distribution

Himalaya (from Pakistan to Arunachal Pradesh), at elevations of 2286‒3900 m ( Williams 1991; Williams et al. 2010).

Figures

Fig. 1. MRBAYES estimate of phylogeny as a metric tree (outgroup B. alpinus (Linnaeus, 1758) not shown) from COI barcodes from GenBank and BOLD databases for the vagans-group and hypnorum- group, with additions from the authors for the hypnorum-group of bumblebees, filtered to remove duplicate and short sequences. Each sequence is labelled with: sequence length; a taxon name from the database; a code consisting of a sequence identifier from the project database and a specimen identifier from the online database; its country and (for larger countries) state or province). The scale bar is calibrated in substitutions per nucleotide site. Results of Bayesian Poisson-tree-process (PTP) models applied for assessing support for species’ gene coalescents by maximum likelihood are shown as PTP scores above the branches: scores approaching 1 and where branches change from blue to red indicates are where the most likely species’ gene coalescents are detected. Asterisks mark sequences used as informal proxies for the type specimens of each of the taxon names in Table 2.

Fig. 2. Distribution of barcoded samples of the hypnorum-complex and B. perplexus Cresson, 1863, with the interpretations as separate candidate species from Fig. 1 shown as different coloured spots as per the colour key on the left. Relief map with hill shading, polar projection (north pole shown as a star), the international boundaries and the Arctic Circle are shown as narrow grey lines, and the northern tree line shown as a broad grey line. Image created in ArcGIS using World_Shaded_Relief basemap (© 2014 Esri).

Figs 3–38. Simplified diagrams for the colour patterns of the hair on the dorsum for ♀♀ (left) and ♂♂ (right) of the Bombus species from Fig. 2. The dorsum is divided into regions, each of which shows only the predominant or most apparent colour for that region using a simplified colour palette (precise shades vary), with olive indicating a mixture of black and yellow hair, and grey indicating a mixture of black and white hair.