Amegilla thorogoodi

Tilcayo Cats original · Amegilla · Sources and editorial assessment · Originals retention rule

Amegilla thorogoodi is a bee with brown thoracic hair and mainly blue abdominal hair bands. The 2017 Australian revision records it in tropical and subtropical eastern Queensland and in southern Papua New Guinea.

Identification

Females have a short dark streak on the hind tibia and a large central patch of pale hair near the abdominal tip. Those characters help distinguish them from A. asserta and A. indistincta. Identification of males also uses the hair arrangement and shape of plates on the abdominal underside.

Its close relative A. walkeri has grey rather than brown hair on the upper thorax. The revision treated the two as geographically separated species: A. walkeri occupies tropical parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Name and records

Rayment named the species in 1939. Its name-bearing male came from Proserpine, Queensland, in November 1937. The revision's collection table contains records in all twelve months, but these do not establish year-round activity at every site. The paper provides identification and distribution evidence without a detailed account of this species' nesting biology.