Curtin College researcher Package Prendergast has named the brand new bee species Leioproctus zephyr, after her pet canine Zephyr after noticing a protruding a part of the bee’s face seemed much like a canine’s snout.
Leioproctus zephyr. Picture credit score: Package Prendergast.
The newly-described bee species belongs to Leioproctus, a species-rich genus within the plaster bee household Colletidae.
The genus consists of greater than 300 bee species grouped into 35 subgenera.
They’re primarily discovered within the Australian area and primarily temperate areas of South America.
“I’m excited to play a job in making Leioproctus zephyr recognized and formally naming it,” Dr. Prendergast stated.
“Bugs usually are so numerous and so essential, but we don’t have scientific descriptions or names for therefore a lot of them.”
“Leioproctus zephyr has a extremely restricted distribution, solely occurring in seven places throughout the southwest Western Australia thus far, and haven’t been collected from their unique location.”
“They had been completely absent from residential gardens and solely current at 5 city bushland remnants that I surveyed, the place they foraged on two plant species of Jacksonia.”
“Not solely is that this species fussy, additionally they have a clypeus that appears like a snout. Therefore, I named them after my canine Zephyr.”
The uncommon and noteworthy discovering would add to current data about Australia’s evolving biodiversity and guarantee Leioproctus zephyr had been protected by conservation efforts.
“Once I first examined the specimens that I collected throughout my Ph.D. surveys discovering the biodiversity of native bees in urbanised areas of the southwest Western Australia biodiversity hotspot, I used to be immediately intrigued by the bee’s very uncommon face,” Dr. Prendergast stated.
“Once I went to determine it, I discovered it matched no described species, and I used to be certain that if it was a recognized species, it could be fairly straightforward to determine given how uncommon it was in look.”
“You may solely verify a selected species when you have a look at them underneath a microscope and undergo the lengthy strategy of making an attempt to match their traits towards different recognized species, then going by way of museum collections.”
“When perusing the WA Museum’s Entomology assortment, I found that a couple of specimens of Leioproctus zephyrus had first been collected in 1979, however it had by no means been scientifically described.”
“By DNA barcoding, I used to be capable of verify that the brand new species was most carefully associated to different species of unidentified Leioproctus.”
A paper on the invention can be revealed within the Journal of Hymenoptera Analysis.
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Package Prendergast. 2022. Leioproctus zephyr Prendergast (Hymenoptera, Colletidae, Leioproctus), an oligoletic new bee species with a exceptional clypeu. Journal of Hymenoptera Analysis, in press;
