Sphecodes pellucidus Smith, 1845

Bogusch, Petr & Straka, Jakub, 2012, Review and identification of the cuckoo bees of central Europe (Hymenoptera: Halictidae: Sphecodes), Zootaxa 3311, pp. 1-41 : 15

Sphecodes pellucidus Smith, 1845

Described as: Sphecodes pellucidus Smith, 1845: 1014 .

Synonyms: Sphecodes pilifrons Thomson, 1870: 99 .

Sphecodes brevicornis Hagens, 1874: 39 –40.

Sphecodes volatilis Smith, 1879: 26 .

Sphecodes pellucidus var. algirus Alfken, 1914: 195 . Sphecodes pellucidus var. hypridus Blüthgen, 1925: 516 . Sphecodes pellucidus var. niveipennis Meyer, 1925: 7 .

Distribution. Europe north to 66°N, present in southern Sweden and Finland, east parts of Asia, North Africa ( Westrich 1989, Warncke 1992).

Biology. Species of sandy sites, sand dunes and semidesert biotopes. Locally common. Alfken (1913) confirmed host Andrena barbilabris . Witt (1992) described the biology of this host and the cleptoparasite. Schönitzer & Klinksik (1990) confirmed also A. nycthemera Imhoff ; Sick et al. (1994) Lasioglossum leucozonium as hosts of S. pellucidus . Other bee species of sandy biotopes were usually published as likely hosts: Andrena argentata Smith , A. bicolor Fabricius , A. humilis Imhoff , A. ventralis Imhoff and A. wilkella ; Vegter (1993) mentioned also Lasioglossum prasinum as likely host. This species was probably common in the localities investigated by this author, because it was considered a likely host of many Sphecodes species. In our survey, S. pellucidus was usually observed in association with A. barbilabris , and S. ephippius from the same localities invaded nests of A. argentata . In our opinion, S. pellucidus is specialized and other hosts are unlikely. To the contrary, we could not reject similar behaviour in S. albilabris , where females try to attack nests of other species.