Bombus ruderatus (Fabricius, 1775)

Ornosa, Concepción, Torres, Félix & Rúa, Pilar De La, 2017, Updated list of bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) from the Spanish Pyrenees with notes on their decline and conservation status, Zootaxa 4237 (1), pp. 41-77 : 68-69

Bombus ruderatus (Fabricius, 1775)

It is a long-tongued bumblebee species, western Palearctic, introduced in New Zealand and Chile, from where it has spread to Argentina (Schmid-Hempel et al. 2014) . According to Rasmont et al. (2015), the species has disappeared from most of its historic locations in the west- and central European lowlands, but despite this regional regression, is considered as Least Concern in the IUCN Red List of European Bees.

It has also been found on Madeira and Azores, northern Africa and in the Iberian Peninsula, where it used to be very abundant, between 350 and 2200 meters of altitude (mostly below 1650 meters, but reaching 2800 meters of altitude in Sierra Nevada, Spain) ( Castro 1993, Ornosa & Ortiz-Sánchez 2004, Vargas et al. 2013). It shows a slight preference for open areas in the Iberian Peninsula, but it has also been collected in forests, foraging on species of Apiaceae , Asteraceae , Boraginaceae , Fabaceae , Liliaceae , Oleaceae , Papaveraceae , Rosaceae , Ranunculaceae and Scrophulariaceae ( Castro 1993, Ornosa & Ortiz-Sánchez 2004).

In southern Spain (ssp. rondensis Castro 1991) it was assessed as Near Threatened in the Red Book of Andalusian Invertebrates (Ornosa & Ortiz-Sánchez 2008).

This species has not been recorded in recent samplings ( Table 3 ), but some individuals were collected further inside the Iberian Peninsula , in Salamanca province (Salamanca: Aldeadávila de la Ribera, 687 m, 13/06/2013, 1 worker, I. Liberal leg., UCME), Sierra de Guadarrama (Madrid: Cercedilla, Cerro Colgado, 30-VI-2014, 1 male, 7 workers; 1-VIII- 2014, 1290 m, 2 males; 15-V-2015, 1 queen; 13-VI-2015, 1 worker; C. Ornosa leg.; Los Molinos, 1200 m, 21-IV-2014, 1 queen, R. Outerelo leg., UCME) and Sierra Nevada ( Granada: Caballo, VII-2011, 3 workers, P. Vargas leg., RBGM; La Herradura, Punta de la Mona, 15-VII-2015, 1 queen, V. Monserrat leg., UCME).