Corresponding author: Maxim Yu. Proshchalykin (
Academic editor: V. Gokhman
A review of nine species of the bee genus
Astafurova YuV, Proshchalykin MYu (2021) New and little-known bees of the genus
Mongolia is a large, landlocked country in eastern Central Asia, covering 1,564,100 km². Politically, Mongolia is divided into 21 provinces named “aimags” in addition to the capital, Ulaanbaatar (Fig.
Administrative map of Mongolia (from
In recent years, significant progress has been made towards a better knowledge of the Mongolian species of some genera:
The genus
In the present paper, based on a comprehensive study of specimens deposited in various collections, we report seven additional species, with two species described as new and five species recorded from Mongolia for the first time, resulting in a total number of nine
A key to Mongolian
The results presented in this paper are based on 277 specimens collected in Mongolia and currently housed in the
The taxonomy, synonymy and distribution of species follow those of
Specimens were studied with an Olympus SZ51 stereomicroscope and photographs taken with a combination of a stereomicroscope (Olympus SZX10) and digital camera (Olympus OM-D). Final images are stacked composites using Helicon Focus 6. All images were post-processed for contrast and brightness using Adobe Photoshop.
New distributional records are noted with an asterisk (*).
*Mongolia (Dornod, Khuvsgul, Tuv, Selenge, Ulaanbaatar, Uvurkhangai, Zavkhan); North Africa, Europe, Turkey, Iran, Russia (eastern part to Far East).
*Mongolia (Dornod, Khentii, Khovd, Khuvsgul); Europe, Turkey, Iran, Russia (eastern part to Far East).
This species differs from other Palaearctic species of the genus by having forewings with two submarginal cells (versus three cells in other species, except
The new species is named in honor of Prof. Arkady Lelej (Vladivostok, Russia), an outstanding hymenopterist and our friend.
Mongolia (Dornogovi, Sukhbaatar, Umnugovi).
It is noteworthy that two other cleptoparasitic genera,
*Mongolia (Arkhangai, Bulgan, Dornod, Khentii, Khovd, Khuvsgul, Selenge, Sukhbaatar, Tuv, Ulaanbaatar); Russia (Buryatia, Far East), Japan (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, Ryukyu).
This species is clearly distinguished from other Palaearctic species by red metasoma with spectacular bright copper-reddish (Fig.
The specific epithet is named after the country of origin.
Mongolia (Bulgan, Zavkhan).
*Mongolia (Khovd); Russia (Buryatia).
*Mongolia (Dornogovi, Khovd, Uvurkhangai); Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, China (Gansu) (
Mongolia (*Dornod, *Selenge, *Sukhbaatar, *Tuv, *Ulaanbaatar, *Uvs, *Zavkhan); Europe, Caucasus, Russia (eastern part to Far East), Korea, Japan (Honshu, Kyushu).
This species was previously reported from North Mongolia (
Mongolia (*Bayankhongor, *Selenge, *Tuv, *Ulaanbaatar), North Africa, Europe, Russia (east to Yakutia), Turkey, Georgia, Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan.
The genus
Unlike other
We are grateful to Fritz Gusenleitner (
This investigation was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant numbers 19–04–00027 and 20–54–44014) and the state research project AAAA–A19–119020690101–6.