Jump to content

Plebeia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plebeia
Plebeia pulchra
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Apidae
Tribe: Meliponini
Genus: Plebeia
Schwarz, 1938
Species

~45 species; see text

Plebeia is a genus of mostly small-bodied stingless bees, formerly included in the genus Trigona. Most of the ~45 species are placed in the subgenus (Plebeia) (s.s.), but there also are four species in the subgenus (Scaura). They differ in only minor structural details, primarily of the hind leg, from other genera that were formerly treated as constituents of Trigona. In some classifications, the genus Schwarziana is treated as a subgenus within Plebeia, but recent morphological analyses indicate that Schwarziana is a distinct lineage, while Plebeia is paraphyletic.[1]

Due to their small sizes, in Brazil many species are known as abelha-mirim (literally "small bee") in Portuguese.

Range

[edit]

Species of the genus Plebeia occur from Mexico to Argentina.

A few feral colonies of P. emerina exist in the United States, the result of experimental imports in the 1950s.[2][3]

List of species

[edit]

[4][5]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Melo, Gabriel A.R. (October 2015). "New species of the stingless bee genus Schwarziana (Hymenoptera, Apidae)". Revista Brasileira de Entomologia. 59 (4): 290–293. doi:10.1016/j.rbe.2015.08.001.
  2. ^ Agarwal, Robin (3 June 2021). "New Colony of Rare Bees Found By a Four-Year-Old". Bay Nature. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
  3. ^ Davies, Erica (28 August 2021). "4-year-old girl discovers rare stingless bees in California". Yahoo News.
  4. ^ "ITIS Standard Report Page: Plebeia". www.itis.gov. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
  5. ^ Grüter, Christoph (2020). Stingless Bees: Their Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer New York. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-60090-7. ISBN 978-3-030-60089-1. S2CID 227250633.