Chlerogella, Michener, 1954

Engel, Michael, 2010, Revision of the Bee Genus Chlerogella (Hymenoptera, Halictidae), Part II: South American Species and Generic Diagnosis, ZooKeys 47 (47), pp. 1-100 : 18

Chlerogella Ξ buyssoni (Vachal)

Map 2

Halictus (Rhopalictus) buyssoni Vachal, 1901: 78 .

Corynura buyssoni (Vachal) ; Moure, 1944: 68.

Chlerogella buyssoni (Vachal) ; Moure and Hurd, 1987: 218; Moure et al., 2007: 794.

Comments. This species was placed without reservation in Chlerogella by Moure and Hurd (1987), who presumably had seen the type specimen. I attempted, without success, to locate the type in the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris in 1996 and accordingly could not confirm this generic assignment nor provide a description for the species. Vachal’s original description gives the impression of a Chlerogella owing to the elongate head, small size (6 mm), and pectinate inner metatibial spur with five branches, but he does not provide sufficient detail for a more confident placement. No description of uniquely Chlerogella features such as the dorsal surface of the pronotum (modified in some species) or the propodeum are provided and the few elements given do not match ideally those species before me. Vachal’s descriptive notes come closest to C. nasus (Enderlein) , but only in superficial details of coloration and given the significantly larger size for the latter I have preferred not to assume that the two are conspecific. Vachal’s holotype was collected near Callanga, Perú. Hopefully further collecting in the area will recover new material and the species may be adequately characterized.