Extracted from Western Bees obtained by the American Museum Expeditions by Cockerell (1921).
'WYOMING: 19, Fuxpark, about 9100 ft. alt., in the Medicine Bow Range,
lodgepole pine, and sagebrush, June 15, 1920 (snow still lying in patches nearby).
9 .-Length nearly 10 mm.; red, with the aspect of N. clarescens, but a little
less robust. It is certainly distinct, by the following characters: black about antennre
and ocelli much more extensive, and continuing as sutural lines half-way down sides
of clypeus; flagellum more slender, and dusky above, toward base strongly blackened;
median band of meso thorax broader, and a broad median black band down middle of
meta thorax, including basal area; extreme sides of metathorax broadly black; red
band along posterior orbits much narrower; second submarginal cell not so broad,
receiving first recurrent nervure about beginning of last third; second abdominal
segment with large clear-cut yellow marks; third wholly without spots; first ventral
with a black fish-tail mark.
Allied to N. bella, but I think certainly not a variety of it. Compared
with a specimen of N. maculata Cresson (9 of bella) from Franklinville,
Pa., it is considerably less robust, with smaller head, much more black
on face, cheeks mainly black (in the maculata red, with a black patch
posteriorly, covered with hair and inconspicuous), yellow on abdomen
reduced to a pair of spots, surface of abdomen less shining, etc. It
evidently approaches Swenk's interpretation of' female N. schwarzi
Cockerell, but the probabilities are against its reference to that species.
|
