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Family Apidae Latreille
The family name Apidae has been used here in its strict sense of Michener (2000). The included species of bees reflect very high diversity in their biology, from solitary to highly social behaviour.
Apidae has been subdivided into three subfamilies namely, Xylocopinae, Nomadinae and Apinae. Xylocopinae include large Carpenter bees on one hand and, small Ceratina like bees onto another. Nomadinae entirely consist of cleptoparasitic bees (Rozen, 1996 : Phylogeny). Rozen (2001) published a taxonomic key to mature larvae of cleptoparasitc bees and in 2000 he presented pupal descriptions of some cleptoparasitic bees included in Apidae. Many belong to Apidae. Michener (2000 p.571) stated 'great diversity of the subfamily Apinae is an invitation to those who would like to subdivide it into several subfamilies, but it is not clear how such subdivision should be done.
More than 6,000 research references are available for Apis mellifera alone since 1970. Thousands are concerning beekeeping in addition to. I have estimated that around 20,000 research references related to this Family can be isolated out of the Apoidean literature. More recent works with regard to phylogeny of Apidae are: Roig-Alsina and Michener (1993), Eickwort and Eickwort (1978), Silveira (1993), Rozen (1994, 1996). Biology and immature stages of the tribe Tetrapediini (Rozen, 2002) and oocyte, eggs and ovarioles of some long tongued bees described by Rozen (2003) are some of the recentmost important references, one should consult.
Summary of included subfamilies and tribes (except Apinae, being separately tabled on its respective page) and, their respective genera found in our specified region :
S.
No.
Subfamilies Tribe
Genera found in our specified region
A. Xylocopinae
1. Manueliini 2. Xylocopini Xylocopa Latreille 3. Ceratinini Ceratina Latreille 4. Allodapini Allodape Lep.& Serville, Braunsapis Michener, Exoneuridia Cockerell B. Nomadinae 1. Hexepeolini 2. Brachynomadini 3. Nomadini Nomada Scopoli 4. Epeolini Epeolus Latreille 5. Ammobatoidini Ammobatoides Radoszkowski, Schmiedeknechtia Friese 6. Biastini 7. Townsendiellini 8. Neolarrini 9. Ammobatini Ammobates Latreille, Parammobatodes Popov, Pasites Jurine 10. Caenoprosopidini C.
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Dr. Rajiv K. Gupta
Department of Zoology
Jai Narain Vyas University
Jodhpur 342 005, India
Ph. +91-291-272 6666
E-mail: [email protected]
Visit "An Updating Bibliography of the Bees of the World" by the same author for the authors' linked references mentioned in this document.