Extracted from Western Bees obtained by the American Museum Expeditions by Cockerell (1921).
COLORADO: 2 if, 1 ~ , Camp Creek Ranger Station in the Medicine Bow Range
"about 41 ° N., 106° 12' W., about 8700 ft. alt., lodgepole pine and sagebrush, June
19, 1920.
if (Type).-Length about 8 mm.; head and thorax black, with coarse long white
hair, slightly yellowish dorsally; face broad, orbits converging below; eyes gray;
mandibles bidentate, bright yellow with dark apex; labrum, clypeus (except upper
border), mark beneath eyes, and narrow lateral face-marks (ending on orbits about
level of antennre) all bright yellow; scape yellow in front; flagellum bright red, the
first few joints blackened above; third antennal joint almost as long as fourth; upper
border of pro thorax obscurely marked with yellowish; tubercles yellow, anteriorly
reddish; scutellum red, flattened, not bigibbous, densely covered with long hair;
pleura with a yellow mark, bordered with reddish, in front; tegulre shining ferruginous;
wings brownish, stigma ferruginous, nervures fuscous; basal nervure going far basad
of transverse median; legs red, anterior knees yellowish, hind femora black behind and
beneath, except at apex; abdomen bright red, with narrow black bands, which are in
the main on the extreme bases of the segments; very large spots on second segment,
smaller ones on third, but no other yellow markings; first dorsal segment black basally,
and first ventral black in middle.
~ .-Length about 8 mm.; head and thorax rather dusky red, abdomen bright
chestnut red, polished; hair of top of head and scutellum strongly reddish; face red
with no yellowish tint; middle of front and region of ocelli black, and a black band
passes downward from each antenna, invading sides of clypeus; eyes gray; antennre
entirely bright red, third joint perhaps a little longer than fourth; meso thorax red
with a broad median black band, and narrow lateral ones, failing posteriorly; metathorax
red at sides of middle but broadly black in middle and extreme sides; cheeks
black with a red postorbital band; legs bright red, the femora with a black spot at
base beneath; abdomen with spots on second segment round and rather small, on
third nearly obsolete; first ventral with a large bifid black mark, the lobes of which
are very broad and obtuse.
In Gnathias, the Rocky Mountain males usually differ from those
of the Eastern and Northwestern States in the more or less red mesothorax;
but N. orophila, from high in the mountains, has it black. The
male orophila, falls near N. cuneata Robertson, but is much more robust
in every way. The female also falls next to cuneata, but has less yellow
on the abdomen.
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