Lasioglossum (Dialictus) soror Saunders, 1901

Wood, Thomas James, Cross, Ian & Baldock, David W., 2020, Updates to the bee fauna of Portugal with the description of three new Iberian Andrena species (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila), Zootaxa 4790 (2), pp. 201-228 : 222-223

Lasioglossum (Dialictus) soror Saunders, 1901

Distribution: Mediterranean basin ( Pauly 2016b).

Notes: Lasioglossum soror was originally described from the Balearics, but there has been a great deal of confusion over its identity and its relationship to closely related species including L. (D.) collopiense (Pérez, 1903) and Lasioglossum (D.) morio (Fabricius, 1793) ( Pauly 2016b) , with female material proving particularly challenging.

Lasioglossum soror was reported from Portugal by Baldock et al. (2018) on the basis of a female collected from Ilhas Berlengas, 12.vii.1977 by H. Teunissen (Naturalis), an island in the Atlantic just off central Portugal. However, Ortiz-Sánchez & Pauly (2017) reported L. soror as having a strictly Mediterranean distribution, and being absent from Portugal. The Teunissen female specimen could not be located at Naturalis, but a long series of males collected from the same site on the same day was present, all identified as Lasioglossum morio cordiale (Pérez, 1903) by A.W. Ebmer.

Following the interpretation and the photographs provided by Pauly (2016b), this material conforms to Lasioglossum collopiense (= L. soror sensu Blüthgen , = L. cordiale sensu Ebmer ). The difficulties in identifying female material of this group is illustrated by DNA barcoding which shows that the two female records of L. collopiense reported from northern Portugal ( Ortiz-Sánchez & Pauly 2017; Baldock et al. 2018) are actually L. morio (A. Pauly, in litt). This confusion ultimately resolves into three taxa: the widespread Lasioglossum morio which is known from throughout Portugal, the West Mediterranean L. collopiense which is known from central and southern Portugal, and the strictly Mediterranean L. soror which is removed from the Portuguese list.

Material examined: Lasioglossum collopiense (sensu Pauly 2016b) : PORTUGAL: Peniche , Ilhadas Berlengas, 12.vii.1977, 14♂, det. A.W. Ebmer, leg. Ph. Pronk, Naturalis, Leiden, RMNH.INS.826292 .