Taxonomy
Family: Megachilidae
Subfamily: Megachilinae
Tribe: Anthidiini
Genus: Pseudoanthidium, Friese 1898
Subgenus: Pseudoanthidium, Friese 1898
Species: Pseudoanthidium flaviventre (Cameron, 1897)
Background
Pseudoanthidium flaviventre are small to medium sized bees, with the female body length from 7-9 mm and the male body length from 12-14 mm (
Kumar et al. 2017Kumar et al. 2017:
Kumar, V., Griswold, T.L., & Belavadi V.V. 2017. The resin and carder bees of south India. Zootaxa. 4317(3): 436-468.). They have a predominantly black
integumentintegument:
a tough, protective outer layer
with symmetrical yellow spots on their face,
tergaterga:
the segments on the top side of the abdomen, often abbreviated when referring to a specific segment to T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, or T7
, and
scutellumscutellum:
shield shaped plate behind scutum
. Their legs are predominantly yellow and may be black at the base. They thin, white,
pubescencepubescence:
short, fine hair
throughout their body.
Distribution
Pseudoanthidium flaviventre is known from Morocco, Spain, Sardinia, Greece, Crete, Israel, Germany, France, Turkey, the Turkestan Basin, and the Caucasus Mountains (
Warncke 1980Warncke 1980:
Warncke, K. 1980. Die Bienengattung Anthidium Fabricius, 1804 in der Westpalaarktis und im turkestanischen Becken. Entomofauna 1: 119ndash;210.).
​Distribution map generated by Discover Life -- click on map for details, credits, and terms of use.
Host associations
Pseudoanthidium flaviventre been observed visiting the flowers of Cucurbitaceae
species
Mukia maderaspatana, the Fabaceae species
Tephrosia purpurea, and the Poaceae species
Brachiaria reptans (
Kumar et al. 2017Kumar et al. 2017:
Kumar, V., Griswold, T.L., & Belavadi V.V. 2017. The resin and carder bees of south India. Zootaxa. 4317(3): 436-468.).
Nesting behavior
Little is known about the nesting biology of
Pseudoanthidium flaviventre but most species of
Pseudoanthidium nest in pre-existing cavities like in wood, stems, galls or crevices (
Litman et al. 2021Litman et al. 2021:
Litman, J. R., Fateryga, A. V., Griswold, T. L., Aubert, M., Proshchalykin, M. Y., Le Divelec, R., Burrows, S. & Praz, C. J. 2022. Paraphyly and low levels of genetic divergence in morphologically distinct taxa: revision of the Pseudoanthidium scapulare complex of carder bees (Apoidea: Megachilidae: Anthidiini). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 195(4): 1287-1337.).
Known invasives
There are no known invasives.
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