A very rare bee species, Schmiedeknechtia oraniensis, spotted for the first time in Morocco

Published on: December 2, 2019, Submitted by Patrick Lhomme on: November 21, 2019

Schmiedeknechtia Friese, 1896 is a very rare genus of parasitic bees belonging to the Ammobatoidini tribe (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Only 6 species of Schmiedeknechtia are known worldwide and all are characterized by a particularly small size ranging from 3 to 5 mm in body length. Their carapace exhibit very short and sparse hairs in the form of patches of pale, often white, scalelike appressed hairs, giving a spotted rather than banded appearance to the bee.

Female of Schmiedeknechtia oraniensis (credit: Pierre Rasmont)

The distribution area of this genus is limited to the Palearctic region. At the exception of one species, Schmiedeknechtia gussakovskyi, occurring in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, all other species are restricted to the Mediterranean basin. Among these 5 Mediterranean species of Schmiedeknechtia, 3 are only known from Turkey (S. brevicornis, S. piliventris and S. walteri) and one is known from Tunisia, Egypt and Israel (S. verhoeffi). The last species, S. oraniensis (photo 1), is known from one record in Spain (considered as doubtful), one record in Algeria and two records in Tunisia. Good chances were that this species was also occurring in Morocco but it was remaining undiscovered in the country until now. This species has not been observed since more than 40 years and was recently collected in Morocco for the first time, the 17th of June 2019, in the middle Atlas in the Sefrou province (769 m altitude).

(Photo 2) Flowers of wild jujube Ziziphus lotus (credit: Ina Dinter, African Plants – A photo guide)

The natural history of this species is totally unknown, but it is considered to occur in sandy areas with bare surface. Our data confirms these assumptions because the specimen was caught while foraging on wild jujube (Ziziphus lotus, photo 2) in a very dry, almost desertic shrubland.

The hosts of Schmiedeknechtia are known to be ground nesting bees from the genus Camptopoeum subgenus Epimethea (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae). Only four species from this subgenus are known in Morocco: Camptopoeum nadigi, C. pseudorubrum, C. simile and C. variegatum. This last species is considered by specialists to be the most probable host of S. oraniensis, however C. nadigi and C. simile are much more abundant in this region of Morocco and could probably better serve as potential hosts.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Dr. Maximilian Schwarz (Ansfelden, Austria) for the identification of the specimen and Prof. Pierre Rasmont (University of Mons, Belgium) for the nice picture.

This research was funded by the Federal German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) through the International Climate Initiative (IKI).