Centris simplex Friese, 1899

Vivallo, Felipe, 2020, Species of the bee genus Centris Fabricius, 1804 described by Heinrich Friese (Hymenoptera: Apidae), Zootaxa 4820 (2), pp. 231-259 : 239-240

Centris simplex Friese, 1899 nom. rev.

Centris labrosa var. simplex Friese, 1899: 44 .

This variety was described based on an undetermined number of females. Two syntypes collected by the German botanist and naturalist Friedrich Sellow (or Sello) (1789‒1831) were found at ZMB being here designated the lecto-type the only that bears an original Friese’s identification label. This specimen is also the one in better condition and it has the following data label: [green label] Montevid. Sello. [printed]\ 1587 [handwritten]\ Centris labrosa n. sp. ♀ [handwritten] det. Friese 1898 [printed]\ [red label]\ Zool. Mus. Berlin [printed with blue ink]\ [white label with red lateral margins] LECTOTYPE Centris labrosa simplex Friese, 1899 desig. F. Vivallo 2011 (printed) (ZMB). Paralectotype with the following data label: [green label] Montevid. Sello. [printed]\ 1587 [handwritten]\ Zool. Mus. Berlin [printed with blue ink]\ [white label with yellow lateral margins] PARALECTOTYPE Centris labrosa simplex Friese, 1899 desig. F. Vivallo 2011 (printed) (ZMB).

Type locality: Uruguay: Montevideo department: Montevideo .

Comments: Between 1817 and 1831, Sellow traveled through Brazil and Uruguay collecting about 12,500 plant specimens, more than 110,000 insects (including specimens posteriorly studied by Friese), 263 mammals and 5,457 birds, plus of nests and eggs ( Stresemann 1948). These numbers are enough to include his name among the most important naturalists who explored South America of all times ( Marchiori et al. 2018).

Moure (1942) proposed this species (as subspecies) as junior synonym of C. minuta Mocsáry, 1899 (= C. analis ( Fabricius, 1804)) . Nevertheless, both species are quite different. One of the easiest characters that can be used to differentiate them is the presence of orange, long and simple setae on the lower corner of the pronotum, present in C. analis and absent in C. simplex .