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Extracted from: Timberlake P.H., (1962). 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 V. University of California Publications in Entomology Editors, Volume 28, No. 1, pp. 1-124.
This remarkable species was described from a single male taken at Las Cruces, New Mexico, on flowers of Solidago, September 3, 1895 by Cockerell. Three years later C. H. Tyler Townsend collected three males and one female on flowers of Fallugia paradoxa, at La Cueva, Organ Mountains, New Mexico, from which the female was briefly described. It was also collected at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in May, 1902, by H. L. Viereck, but apparently has not been found since. It is distinguished from its closest allies by the dull head and thorax, lack of light marking in the female, and restriction of the yellow in the male to the anterior margin of face. The genitalia of the male are very distinctive, but not so greatly modified as in P. semicrocea Cockerell.
Female.—Head and thorax dark blue green; labrum, clypeus, mesoscutum except anterior third, scutellum, and metanotum, black or blackish; light markings absent. Abdomen black, ortinged with brown; pygidial plate ferruginous. Legs brown, anterior side of front tibiae yellow. Antennae dark fuscous or blackish, flagellum brownish yellow beneath. Mandibles pale yellow at base and red on somewhat more than apical half. Proboscis fuscous. Tegulae pale testaceous hyaline, base pale brown. Wings milky hyaline, nervures and stigma entirely pallid.
Head distinctly broader than long; clypeus moderately projecting; anterior corners of disk roundly produced, and anterior margin between them broadly emarginate. Facial f oveae linear, wider than interval between them and eyes, and reaching from level of middle of antennal sockets about two-thirds of distance to level of anterior ocellus. Mandibles moderately thick, with a well-developed inner tooth. Proboscis moderately short, galeae shorter than stipites. Pterostigma moderately large, about three-fourths as broad as first submarginal cell, and parts of marginal cell beneath and beyond it about equal. Pygidial plate plane, with sides converging to narrowly rounded or almost acute apex. Head and thorax finely and strongly tessellate and dull. Punctures distinct only on face below antennae, those of clypeus comparatively coarse; setigerous punctures of mesonotum rather close-set but very fine. Pubescence whitish, short, thin, but copious for a Perdita; hair of mesonotum erect and somewhat mosslike; that of cheeks and underparts of thorax much longer and denser. Length: nearly 5 mm., anterior wing, 3.8 mm.
Male.—Dark blue-green; disk of mesoscutum and scutellum blackish. Mandibles except red tips, labrum, clypeus, except a brown mark on each side of more than upper half of disk, rather small lateral marks, marks covering subantennal plates, and two small supraclypeal spots, pale yellow. Yellow area between dark marks of clypeus parallel sided and generally about twice as long as wide. Dark mark between supraclypeal spots nearly as broad as median yellow area on clypeus and in line with it. Lateral marks broadly and roundly emarginate above by extension of green; inner lobe toward clypeus narrow; orbital lobe going to level of antennal sockets or only halfway. Thorax entirely dark, but tubercles more or less brown. Abdomen brown to fuscous, without pale markings. Legs brown or fuscous; apex of front femora, anterior side of front tibiae, and small mark on middle tibiae, pale yellow. Antennae brown, flagellum more yellowish beneath, scape clear pale yellow except above. Tegulae and wings as in female, except subcosta and stigma more or less yellowish.
Head much enlarged, quadrate, broader than long; cheeks broader than eyes and subdentate anteriorly. Disk of clypeus small, about twice as broad as high; lateral extensions strongly reflexed on inner half and less so at outer ends, so that disk becomes pointed at outer ends and narrowed about one-half above. Labrum small, a little broader at apex than at base, about twice as broad as long, and a little less broad than space between outer margins of subantennal plates. Mandibles broadly and roundly expanded at base on outer margin and with slight expansion on inner margin between middle and acute apex, but as seen from above or beneath tapering evenly from base to apex. Facial foveae small, rather faint, about twice as long as wide. Flanks of pronotum moderately to deeply impressed; posterior corners of disk rounded and more or less prominent. Sculpture and pubescence about as in female, except hair of mesonotum fine, moderately short, and not mosslike. Tergite 7 narrowed evenly to subacute apex. Subgenital plate about one and one-half times as long as wide, truncato-emarginate at broad apex, and with short dense erect hair on disk. Caulis of aedeagus short, very broad, and depressed; dorsal lobes very broad at base and narrowed toward rounded apex, but tapering and acute in lateral view; volsellae well exposed, dorsal pair longer than inner ventral pair; parameral lobes long, straplike, only slightly bowed inward, appearing acute at apex in lateral view; sagittae widely divergent (in specimen examined) for protrusion of large, amorphous sac, each rod tapering very slightly to rounded apex and each with a large, deep, rounded emargination on outer margin just beyond middle and nearly opposite apex of parameral lobes, emargination cutting more than halfway to opposite margin of rod, in lateral view sagittae moderately fusiform with emargination appearing angular and on ventral edge. Length: 4-5 mm.; anterior wing, 3.5-3.7 mm.
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