Meganomiinae
| Meganomiinae | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Meganomia gigas | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Clade: | Anthophila |
| Family: | Melittidae |
| Subfamily: | Meganomiinae |
| genera | |
|
Ceratomonia | |
Meganomiinae is a subfamily of melittid bees, with 10 species in four genera, found only in Africa, primarily in xeric habitats, with the distributional limits in Yemen and Madagascar.[1] They are rather different in appearance from the other groups of past/present melittids, being large bees (10–22 mm), mostly black with strong yellow markings, resembling anthidiine megachilids.[1]
Taxonomy
Initial molecular work suggested that the family Melittidae was paraphyletic, and that it's subfamilies (including Meganomiinae) should therefore be elevated to family status.[2][3] However, these studies included very few melittids, due to their rarity. A 2013 investigation included a greater number of melittid bees and concluded that the family was probably monophyletic, thus supporting Meganomiinae as a subfamily of Melittidae.[4]
References
- 1 2 Michez, Denis (2008). "Monographic revision of the melittid bees (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Melittidae sensu lato)" (PDF). Proceedings of the Netherlands Entomological Society meeting. 19: 32.
- ↑ Danforth, B.N., Sipes, S., Fang, J., Brady, S.G. (2006). "The history of early bee diversification based on five genes plus morphology". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103: 15118–15123. doi:10.1073/pnas.0604033103. PMC 1586180
. PMID 17015826. - ↑ Danforth, Bryan. "Bees-a primer" (PDF). Current Biology. 17 (5): 156–161. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.01.025.
- ↑ Hedtke, Shannon H. (2013). "The bee tree of life: a supermatrix approach to apoid phylogeny and biogeography". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 13 (138): 1–13.
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