The North American bees of the genus Ptilothrix Cresson, 1878 (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Emphorini), with the description of two new species

Abstract

Ptilothrix Cresson is a genus of New World bees with an amphitropical distribution. Like other genera in the tribe Emphorini, Ptilothrix have narrow pollen preferences. These solitary ground-nesting bees exhibit a remarkable nesting behavior in which females carry water from ponds to facilitate the excavation of the hard soil where they nest. With 16 described species, there are few taxonomic studies and, before this work, a lack of taxonomic treatments for the species in North America. Thus, in this study we revised and recognized four species for the region: Ptilothrix bombiformis Cresson, Ptilothrix sumichrasti Cresson, Ptilothrix chiricahua Florez-Gomez & Danforth, sp. nov. and Ptilothrix zacateca Florez-Gomez & Danforth, sp. nov. We describe and illustrate males and females of the two new species. We also present diagnoses for the four species, a key to identify them, and a map of their geographic distributions.