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Caupolicana electa (Cresson, 1878)
Megacilissa electa Cresson, 1878

Life   Insecta   Hymenoptera   Apoidea   Colletidae   Caupolicana
Subgenus: None

Caupolicana electa, f, ga, baker, back
© Copyright source/photographer · 5
Caupolicana electa, f, ga, baker, back

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Caupolicana electa, f, ga, baker, face
© Copyright source/photographer · 5
Caupolicana electa, f, ga, baker, face
Caupolicana electa, f, ga, baker, side
© Copyright source/photographer · 5
Caupolicana electa, f, ga, baker, side

Caupolicana electa, male, abdtop
John B. Pascarella · 1
Caupolicana electa, male, abdtop
Caupolicana electa, male, abdtop2
John B. Pascarella · 1
Caupolicana electa, male, abdtop2

Caupolicana electa, male, face
John B. Pascarella · 1
Caupolicana electa, male, face
Caupolicana electa, male, genitalia
John B. Pascarella · 1
Caupolicana electa, male, genitalia

Caupolicana electa, male, genitaliaside
John B. Pascarella · 1
Caupolicana electa, male, genitaliaside
Caupolicana electa, male, side
John B. Pascarella · 1
Caupolicana electa, male, side

Caupolicana electa, male, tongue
John B. Pascarella · 1
Caupolicana electa, male, tongue
Caupolicana electa, male, topscutum
John B. Pascarella · 1
Caupolicana electa, male, topscutum

Caupolicana electa, genitalia
© Mitchell, 1960 · 1
Caupolicana electa, genitalia
Caupolicana electa, female, back
© John B. Pascarella, Valdosta State University, Georgia · 1
Caupolicana electa, female, back

Caupolicana electa, female, wing
© John B. Pascarella, Valdosta State University, Georgia · 1
Caupolicana electa, female, wing
Identification
Reprinted with permission from: Mitchell, T.B. 1960 Bees of the Eastern United States. North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Technical Bulletin No. 141.

Length, 20 mm.; integument black, basal segments of legs pier ens, tibiae and tarsi ferruginous; wings pale fuliginous, veins more ferruginous, the small and narrow stigma piceous; tegulae pale yelbowish-hyaline thorax and basal abdominal segment with a dense and rather short covering of fine pubescence which entirely obscures the surface, pale ochraceous above, becoming somewhat more whitish below; 2nd and following segments of abdomen black in appearance, pubescence extremely short and hardly evident en the more basal segments, becoming rather long and copious on 5th and 6th, fuscous in color.

FEMALE—Face about as long as broad; clypeus protuberant, relatively bare, smooth and shining, with minute, scattered, irregular punctures; labrum largely exposed, with a shallow median groove; mandibles rather short and slender, bidentate; basal segment of fiagel]um about equal to segments 2-5 combined, the median segments somewhat longer than broad, the 2nd about as broad as long, piceous above, somewhat more brownish beneath; facial foveae poorly developed;vertex narrow back of eyes, lateral ocelli large, about equidistant from eyes and each other, and separated from margin of vertex by a space about equal to their diameter; pubescence rather long and copious on posterior and lower surfaces of head, between ocelli and around bases of antennae, entirely pale ochraceous cheeks about equal to eyes in width; front and middle legs quite densely pubescent, front tibiae with a prominent, posterior, whitish fringe; scopa dense, well developed on trochanters, femora and tibiae, pale ochraceous, very finely plumose; hind basitarsi shorter than tibiae but fully as broad; basitibial plate poorly developed.

MALE —Face rather narrow and elongate, inner margin of eyes parallel, eye quite large in frontal view; clypaus protuberant, quite densely pubescent, with very fine and close punctures beneath; labrum largely exposed, with a shallow median groove; mandibles short and slender, with a subapical inner tooth basal segment of flagellum about equal to segments 2-5 in length, 2nd segment broader than long, following segments slightly longer than broad, piceous above, more brownish beneath; vertex narrow back of eyes, lateral ocelli large, space separating them from eyes about equal to their diameter, hut somewhat more widely removed from margin of vertex; cheeks slightly narrower than eyes; pubescence pale ochraceous and quite dense on posterior portion of vertex, cheeks, front below antennae, between ocelli and over most of clypeus; legs slender, hind tibiae elongate, slightly arcuate, about twice the length of the mid tibiae, hind basitarsi rlonder, parailel-sidel nod about half the length of their tibiae.

DISTRIBUTION—Coastal plain, North Carolina to Georgia and Alabama; September.

FLOWER RECORDS Aureolaria sp. and Trischostema dichotemum. There is much to learn regarding the distribution and habits of this bee. It seems to be primarily matinal, so far as the time of flight is concerned, and both sexes have been collected on Trichostema around sunrise. Males, however, have been collected in late afternoon or at dusk, visiting both Trichostema and Aureolaria. it was thought that it might be nocturnal, hut the flowers which it visits, at least so far as positive records show, are closed during the night, which would seem to preclude any nocturnal visits. It occurs, apparently, only in the sand ridge areas of the Coastal Plain in the Southeast.

Copied from Caupolicana from Florida (Hymenoptera : Colletidae)by Charles D. Michener and Mark Deyrup.

Differences Between Caupolicana JEoridana and C. electa The differences that we have noted between the two forms are as follows: 1. The integument in C. joridana tends to be paler, with more reddish areas, than in C. electa. There is enough variation that no one of the differences listed is applicable to all specimens.

a. In males of C. joridana the apex of the first flagellar segment and the entire second segment, on the under surface, are often red-brown in contrast to the other segments which may be blackish or brown on their under surfaces; in C. electa these areas are blackish, concolorous with the other segments, or red-brown as in C. floridana.

b. In C. joridana the coxae and femora are brown, with yellow brown areas especially distally on the fore femur; in C. electa the coxae are blackish and the femora are black to brown with limited yellow brown areas especially on the fore femur.

2. Minor differences in hair form and color seem to distinguish C. joridana from C. electa but the differences seem rather trivial and, except for 'b' below, are not always constant.

a. In females of C. joridana the ochraceous fringe along the posterior margin of the front tibia is not as broad as the width of the tibia and the hairs are mostly curved apicad and not sigmoid; in C. electa the fringe is as broad as the width of the tibia and the coarser hairs are mostly weakly sigmoid.

b. In females of C. floridana the hairs of S3 and S4 are laterally ochraceous, medially reddish fuscous; in C. electa they are all reddish fuscous, distinctly darker than the ochraceous hairs of S2.

c. The hairs of S6 of the male of C. floridana are brown; in C. electa they are brown or black.

3. The most reliable and conspicuous difference between C. floridana and C. electa is on the apices of T2 to T4 (Fig. 1). In C. floridana there are apical bands of dense, white, laterally barbed or almost plumose, hairs (the band of T4 widest, occupying about one third of exposed part of T4 except where narrowed middorsally, band of T3 slightly narrower than bands of T2 and T4). In C. electa there are no such bands, the apical J hairs being the same in density, color (black), and form as the discal hairs of T2 to T4, or there are narrow bands of very short and often scattered white hairs on the extreme apices of the terga, often only laterally.

4. A feeble morphological difference between C. joridana and C. electa is in the form of the posterior margin of S6 of the male. In C. floridana it is broadly convex, sometimes straight on either side of the median area; in C. electa it is also in general broadly convex but on either side of the median area it is feebly concave.

5. Size is a seemingly reliable difference between the smaller C. Floridana and the larger C. electa. Table 1 shows measurements of available specimens. For most structures C. electa averages roughly 10% larger than C. Floridana. There is no size overlap among available specimens. For the male S7, S8, and the genitalia, the difference is near 20% (see also Figs. 3 & 4). The measurements of C. Jloridana in Table 1 are of specimens from the Archbold Biological Station. Measurements of the paratype from Biscayne Bay, Dade County, all fall within the ranges shown in Table 1.

6. In the few dissected specimens the two midapical projections of S7 of the male are relatively longer in C. Floridana than in C. electa, and longer in relation to the lateral arms of the same structure (Fig. 3). Also the basal part of S8 is longer (almost as long as broad) in C. Floridana; more nearly twice as broad as long in C. electa (Fig. 3). The elongation of parts of S7 and S8 in C. Floridana might relate to the need for some function in spite of small size.

7. The apices of the penis valves seem less attenuate and are parallel-sided only at the extremities as seen in side view in C. Floridana. They are more attenuate and parallelsided in some but not all specimens of C. electa. So few males have been dissected that it is not clear whether this feature differs on average between the taxa. As shown in Fig. 4, the ventrobasal emargination of the gonobase is U-shaped in C. electa but V-shaped in the narrower genitalia of C. Floridana.

Except as indicated above, the male genitalia and hidden sterna are almost alike in the two forms and agree with the illustrations of C. electa given by Mitchell (1960) and Michener (1 966). The conclusion of the morphological studies is that in spite of conspicuous differences in size and tergal white hair bands, the two forms are remarkably similar. We believe, however, that they are best regarded as specifically distinct. No specimens are known from the area (Lake Placid to Liberty County, some 450 krn) in which the two forms meet or possibly intergrade if they exist there at all. The exaggerated difference in size of the male genitalia and associated sterna possibly indicates development of an isolating mechanism.

Taxonomic Treatment

Caupolicana (Caupolicana) electa (Cresson)

Megacilissa electa Cresson, 1878: 221. Caupolicana electa, Michener, 1959: 1044.-Mitchell, 1960: 23.-Michener, 1966: 736 (not records for southern Florida).

This species was described and illustrated by Mitchell (1960) and Michener (1966) and the features that distinguish it from C. Joridana are enumerated above. The body length is 18 to 23 mm; for more meaningful measurements see Table 1. A new locality record is Florida: Liberty County: Highway 269, 0.2 miles south of Gadsden County line, 12 and 16 October, 2000 (C. Porter and L. Stange), a male on Agalinis (Scrophulariaceae) and Trichostemma (Lamiaceae), a female on Agalinis fasciculata (Elliott) Raf. These specimens were lent to CDM courtesy of James R. Wiley of the Florida State Collection of Arthropods, Gainesville, Florida.


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