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Extracted from: Timberlake P.H., (1958). A Revisional Study of The Bees of the Genus Perdita F. Smith, with Special Reference to the Fauna of the Pacific Coast (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) Part III. University of Caifornia Press Berkeley and Los Angeles 1958, Volume 14, No. 5, pp. 303-410, plates 4-15.
This species occurs commonly on the Mohave Desert at flowers of Cleomella, and it and the next species, P. thelypodii, are the only known members of the typical section of the zonalis group that visit flowers not belonging to the Compositae. The original description of cleomellae may be supplemented as follows:
Female.—The supraclypeal mark usually well developed and reaching level of antennal sockets. Disk of pronotum entirely pale yellow or whitish, the flanks except tubercles blackish, with little or no green tinge. Abdomen creamy white, with four narrow blackish bands.
Head barely wider than long. Mandibles rather slender, apically acute, with a small but distinct inner tooth. Facial foveae moderately narrow, usually about their own width from margin of eyes and extending from level of middle of antennal sockets somewhat less than halfway to level of anterior ocellus. Pygidial plate as long as wide at base, with the sides converging to the narrow and Blightly notched apex. Frons tessellate, but shining and impunctate except for a few widely spaced, minute punctures in area between level of foveae and anterior ocellus. Mesonotum polished, with remote minute punctures. Pubescence whitish, very thin on mesonotum, but the scutum with a narrow prescutellar band of appressed, more mosslike hair; frons nude except for a few hairs on each side between fovea and adjacent antennal socket. Length, about 3.8-4.25 mm.; anterior wing, 2.8-3 mm.
Male.—Face entirely creamy white below level of antennae, the white enclosing the antennal sockets except above; mark at anterior end of cheeks very large, with the postorbital line reaching middle of eyes. Mark on flanks of pronotum much smaller than in female, the disk with a pair of transverse dark marks. Abdomen generally with five narrow dark bands, including an arcuate one at base of tergite 1; part of the bands at base of tergites 2 to 4 very narrow, and the part at apex of the same segments abbreviated and with distinct anterior bulges at each end; a band at apex of tergite 5 represented by a transverse pale brown mark on each side.
Head rotund, about as broad as long. Mandibles slender and very acute at apex. Frons considerably more punctate and hairy than in the female. Subgenital plate narrow at base, rapidly expanding beyond the middle to become a little more than twice as wide as the narrowest part and slightly rounded across the apex. Caulis much broadened across the middle, the parameral lobes very small and acute, the mediodorsal lobes nearly squarely truncate at apex; fused body of sagittae about four times longer than wide. Length, 3-3.5 mm.; anterior wing, 2.6-2.8 mm.
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