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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 species is known only from specimens taken in Mazourka Canyon, Inyo Mountains, California, which are without a flower record and have been reddened by cyanide (the color of the light parts is hypothetical but is assumed to be yellow). There is rather close relationship to exilis, but there are distinctive differences in the markings of both sexes and in the genitalia. Female.—Head and thorax dark green; sides of thorax and propodeum bluer; disk of mesoscutum, scutellum, and metanotum, black. Mandibles except red tips, proboscis, labrum, clypeus, lateral marks, and usually a supraclypeal mark, yellow. Lateral marks triangular, somewhat higher than wide and reaching level of antennae. Thorax entirely dark. Abdomen yellow, with basal half of first tergite more or less infuscated. Legs brown to blackish; anterior side of front tibiae, and front tarsi, yellow. Antennae blackish, flagellum very slightly lighter beneath. Tegulae subhyaline, base brownish. Wings whitish hyaline, nervures pale testaceous, stigma testaceous yellow, subcosta pale brown except at base. Head slightly longer than wide; clypeus produced, convex, and prominent, its disk about as high as wide, broadly rounded above, and truncate anteriorly. Facial foveae about equaling width of space between them and eyes, and reaching from level of middle of antenna! sockets not more than halfway to level of anterior ocellus. Proboscis moderate in length and not surpassing the fossa. Mandibles rather stout, strongly curved, and abruptly contracted on inner margin before subacute apex. Antennae slender, joints of flagellum distinctly longer than thick. Ptero-stigma three times as long as wide and about three-fourths as wide as first submarginal cell; marginal cell shorter than stigma, with part beneath it longer than part beyond. Pygidial plate longer than wide, with sides converging to rather narrowly rounded apex. Head and thorax minutely tessellate and shining, tessellation most distinct on frons and vertex, disk of mesoscutum and scutellum almost polished. Pubescence whitish, thin and short on frons, disk of mesoscutum and propodeum mostly nude, hair longer and denser on cheeks, front coxae, and mesosternum. Length: about 3.5-4 mm.; anterior wing, 2.8-2.9 mm.
Male.—Head and thorax dark or bluish green; mesonotum not blackened on disk. Anterior half of gular region, anterior third of cheeks, mandibles except red tips, proboscis, labrum, and face below level of antennae, yellow. Lateral face marks only moderately narrowed above and ending at level of foveae. Collar of pronotum, a narrow band slightly interrupted on hind margin of disk, and tubercles, yellow. Abdomen yellow, with basal half, or more, of tergite 1 infuscated. Legs yellow; front and middle femora with a brown streak behind; hind femora usually more extensively brown above except at apex; hind tibiae and tarsi brown. Antennae yellow, pedicel and flagellum slightly brownish. Tegulae and wings as in female, except base of tegulae yellow. Head small to moderately enlarged; cheeks in the more macrocephalous examples broader than eyes, moderately receding, and rounded beneath. Occiput shallowly concave, width of concavity less than width of space between summit of eyes. Clypeus convex, lateral extension strongly reflexed and only partly visible in frontal aspect, disk somewhat broader than high and not dentate at sides of labrum. Facial foveae punctiform. Mandibles stout for a male, reaching slightly beyond far margin of proboscidial fossa, somewhat dilated at base on outer margin, and only apical fifth of shaft narrowed gradually on inner margin to acute apex. Flanks of pronotum weakly impressed. Venation, sculpture, and pubescence about as in female, but mesonotum with delicate tessellation. Tergite 7 narrowed into an apical lobe as long as wide and rounded at apex. Subgenital plate with sides slightly converging, nearly twice as long as width of apical half, apex rounded, and apical part of disk with very fine short hair. Aedeagus similar to that of exiUs, but dorsal lobes of caulis a little more divergent, parameral lobes fringed with longer hair, and sagittae widest near apical fourth of length in dorsal view and more thickly fusiform at middle in lateral view; apex of sagittae thinly acute in both species. Length: 2.7-3.5 mm.; anterior wing, 2.3-2.5 mm.
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