Talk:Ctenoplectrella gorskii

The Eocene bee fauna of Europe is comparatively rich and well studied, particularly those preserved in fossiliferous resins (e.g., ENGEL 1998, 2001, 2004, ENGEL&PERKOVSKY 2006,MICHEZ et al. 2007, OHL&ENGEL 2007, PATINY et al. 2007). The most diverse and commonly represented species are those of the families Apidae and Megachilidae, and of the genera Succinapis ENGEL, Electrapis COCKERELL, Protobombus COCKERELL, Melikertes ENGEL, Boreallodape ENGEL, and Ctenoplectrella COCKERELL. Some of these genera are also documented from contemporaneous deposits as compressions (e.g., WAPPLER & ENGEL 2003). While new material of these genera continues to come to light (e.g. vide appendix in ENGEL 2004), new species are actually quite rare. It was therefore surprising to discover among the Baltic amber collection of Mr. ANDRZEJ GÓRSKI, Bielsko Biała, Poland www.amberabg.com two specimens of a new species of the megachiline genus Ctenoplectrella (Fig. 1). The genus was previously understood to comprise three species – Ctenoplectrella viridiceps COCKERELL, C. grimaldii ENGEL, and C. cockerelli ENGEL – in middle Eocene (Lutetian) Baltic amber, and a single species, C. zherikhini ENGEL&PERKOVSKY, in the roughly contemporaneous Rovno amber of the Ukraine. Herein I provide a description of this new species to make it known to melittologists and palaeoentomologists. The format and terminology for the description follows that of ENGEL (2001).

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