Megachile (Chalicodoma) albonotata Radoszkowski, 1886

Risch, Stephan, Roberts, Stuart P. M., Smit, Jan, Wood, Thomas J., Michez, Denis & Reverté, Sara, 2023, The new annotated checklist of the wild bees of Europe (Hymenoptera: Anthophila), Zootaxa 5327 (1), pp. 1-147 : 64

Megachile (Chalicodoma) albonotata Radoszkowski, 1886 , M. cressa ( Tkalců, 1988) and M. rufescens Pérez,

1879

This group includes three taxa in Europe: Megachile rufescens Pérez, 1879 , M. cressa ( Tkalců, 1988) and M. albonotata Radoszkowski, 1886 (with the subspecies M. albonotata setulosa ( Pérez, 1895) and M. albonotata italica ( Tkalců, 1988)) . The taxa represent allopatric, geographic forms mostly differing in the colour of the vestiture in the female sex: Megachile albonotata s. str. has brownish grey vestiture with conspicuous lateral spots of hairs on the tergal margins, and is present in south-east Europe ( Tkalců 1974). The subspecies Megachile albonotata italica , restricted to central and southern Italy, differs in the absence of spots of hairs on the tergal margins ( Tkalců 1988), and the subspecies M. albonotata setulosa , restricted to the Iberian Peninsula by the lighter vestiture (Ortiz-Saìnchez et al. 2012). M. cressa , only known from the island of Crete, differs in the narrower tergal fasciae and, according to Tkalců (1988), subtle sculptural differences. Lastly, Tkalců (1974) treats M. rufescens as a distinct species, present only in southern France, differing from M. albonotata in the reduced tergal fasciae. Future work is needed to elucidate the status of these taxa forms, all three of which are retained as valid species here.