Scrapter niger Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau & Audinet-Serville, 1828

Davies, Gregory B. P. & Brothers, Denis J., 2006, Morphology of Scrapter (Hymenoptera: Anthophila: Colletidae), with description of three new species and taxonomic status of five Cockerell taxa, African Invertebrates 47, pp. 135-183 : 175-176

Scrapter niger Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau & Audinet-Serville, 1828

Scrapter niger Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau & Audinet-Serville, 1828: 403 . Type locality: ‘Cafrarie’.

Scrapter subincertus Cockerell, 1944 a: 405 . Type locality: Rapenburg, Cape Flats, Cape Town , Western Cape. Syn. n.

Scrapter brunneipennis Cockerell, 1944 a: 406 . Type locality: Mossel Bay , Western Cape. Syn. n.

S. subincertus ( Fig. 119 ) was briefly described from females collected at Rapenburg, Western Cape, in early October by Rowland Turner. Cockerell (1944 a) wondered ‘whether this could be the female of S. niger , but what I have identified as probably S. niger , from Natal, is certainly different’. Cockerell’s remarks are rejected because S. niger does not occur in KwaZulu-Natal ( Eardley 1996: fig. 62), and a S. subincertus syntype loaned to GBPD agrees excellently with material from Dassiefontein, Kamieskroon district, Northern Cape, identified as S. niger by C.D. Eardley. Identifying features include the presence of a clypeal tubercle, nascent clypeal sulcus, sharply-defined ovoid facial foveae with finely reticulate sculpture, weakly carinulate vertex and frons, dense mesoscutum punctation (interspace 0.5–1× puncture diameter) with smooth interspaces and scattered micropunctures, weakly angulate propodeum (propodeal triangle basal area subequal in length to metanotum) with feeble carinae on propodeal triangle basal area, tuberculate metabasitibial plate, simple claws and brush on anterior (outer) surface of probasitarsus with both simple and branched hairs.

The status of the material identified as probable S. niger from KwaZulu-Natal by Cockerell is uncertain; it is possibly in the Natural History Museum, London. Cockerell (1935: 239) also mentioned male bees from KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg that he tentatively identified as male S. niger .

Cockerell (1944 a) described S. brunneipennis ( Fig. 120 ) from male specimens obtained at Mossel Bay, Western Cape, by Rowland Turner in August 1932. GBPD has examined a syntype, and the genitalia agree closely with that of S. niger illustrated by Eardley (1996, fig. 57). Other features include: carinulate frons and vertex, no mediolongitudinal clypeal sulcus, finely reticulate mesoscutum surface with heavy punctation, metabasitibial plate not entire (jagged posterior carina and weak anterior carina), pygidial plate present, and all tarsi and protibia yellowish. The male holotype of S. niger in the Paris Museum is apparently now untraceable (C. Villemant in. litt.).

Scrapter leonis Cockerell, 1934

Scrapter leonis Cockerell, 1934: 452 . Type locality: Lion’s Head , Cape Town, Western Cape.

Scrapter merescens Cockerell, 1944 a: 405 . Type locality: Worcester , Western Cape. Syn. n.

S. merescens ( Fig. 121 ) was perfunctorily described on the basis of seven females from Worcester in the Western Cape collected by Rowland Turner during August to September 1928 (Cockerell 1944 a). GBPD has examined a female syntype and found that it is attributable to S. leonis . Cockerell (1944 a: 406) compared S. merescens to S. leonis , but distinguished it on the basis of ‘duskier wings and the absence of red hair on the scutellum, as well as the broader head’. These seem trifling differences and S. merescens is here synonymised with S. leonis .

Cockerell (1944 a: 406) also mentioned a male specimen from Worcester that he thought may belong to S. merescens . GBPD has examined this specimen.The handwritten label by Cockerell reads ‘ Scrapter merescens , probable M, C[oc]k[ere]ll’. Cockerell did not describe this male in his 1944 paper, and clearly did not intend it to form any part of the syntype material. GBPD’s examination of the specimen shows that it is unequivocally a specimen of S. capensis (Friese) as shown by the lack of a mediolongitudinal clypeal sulcus, carinulate frons and vertex, narrow, shallow facial fovea, leathery mesoscutal sculpture, almost entire metabasitibial plate (slight gap apically), short, plumose tomentum on S2 and S3 and truncate S8 and distinctly bifid claws. As the male specimen does not form part of the original syntype series, it has no nomenclatural standing and has merely been labelled as a S. capensis specimen.

Figures

Figs 119–121. General appearance of Scrapter bees: (119) Lateral view of female S. subincertus, (120) Dorsal view of male S. brunneipennis, (121) Lateral view of male S. merescens.