Xylocopa (Neoxylocopa) suspecta Moure and Camargo 1988: 209–214

Mawdsley, Jonathan R., 2018, New records and diagnostic notes on large carpenter bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: genus Xylocopa Latreille), from the Amazon River basin of South America, Insecta Mundi 631, pp. 1-15 : 6

Xylocopa (Neoxylocopa) suspecta Moure and Camargo 1988: 209–214

Fig. 12

Known distribution. Bolivia, Brazil (Bahia, Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo; Moure and Camargo 1988: 211–214; Moure 2012). Type locality: “Ribeirão Preto SP” ( Moure and Camargo 1988: 211).

Material examined. Brazil: Pará: Conceição do Araguaia , VII.1959, M. Alvarenga (1 ♀) , Santarém , IX.1955, M. Alvarenga (1 ♀) ; Rondônia: Abunã , XI.1962, W. Bokerman (1 ♀) .

Notes. According to Moure and Camargo (1988), this is a very common species in southeastern Brazil and the female of this species can be easily separated from females of most of the sympatric species of subgenus Neoxylocopa by its brilliant green wing iridescence. In describing this species, Moure and Camargo did not compare it to X. (N.) amazonica , a similar species whose distribution overlaps in part with that of X. (N.) suspecta . In the material that I examined, the wing iridescence of females of X. (N.) amazonica is much less brilliant, and is distinctly bluish-green, particularly towards the base of the wing. The female of X. (N.) suspecta also has much larger and denser punctures on the tergites of the metasoma. These two species belong to a well-defined group of large-bodied species of subgenus Neoxylocopa with greenish iridescence on the wings. Another valid species in this group is X. (N.) nasica Pérez, which has greenish-golden wing iridescence and is known from northern Colombia, Panamá, and Costa Rica ( Hurd 1978; Mawdsley 2017).

Figures

Figures 1–13. Dorsal habitus photographs of pinned, preserved specimens of females of Xylocopa (Neoxylocopa) species from the Amazon River basin, from the USNM collection. 1) X. (N.) aeneipennis. 2) X. (N.) amazonica. 3) X. (N.) aurulenta. 4) X. (N.) carbonaria. 5) X. (N.) cearensis. 6) X. (N.) fimbriata. 7) X. (N.) frontalis. 8) X. (N.) grisescens. 9) X. (N.) hirsutissima. 10) X. (N.) orthogonaspis. 11) X. (N.) similis. 12) X. (N.) suspecta. 13) X. (N.) tegulata.