Geocities.Com/BeesInd2
World Taxonomic Profile
This is a bee species level catalogue consolidated for Indian region. Therefore, phylogenic discussions about higher taxonomic categories above to the known genera from the specified area have not taken into consideration. The taxonomic revisions made by different people for various regions should be consulted for the placements of various taxonomic categories. I present here the finally made revision of a taxonomic category without going in details for its intermediate synonymies/revisions.
A lot of shuffling took place in the fauna of Superfamily Apoidea during post fifties in the previous century. Until McGinley (1989) ten families were recognized in Superfamily Apoidea namely, Colletidae, Oxaeidae, Andrenidae, Halictidae, Melittidae, Stenotritidae, Ctenoplectridae, Megachilidae, Anthophoridae and Apidae. A major taxonomic revision was presented by Michener (2000). Ctenoplectridae was reduced to tribe Ctenoplectrini of subfamily Apinae; subfamilies of Anthophoridae in major, have been transferred to Family Apidae and, fauna of Family Oxaeidae have merged into Family Andrenidae, as a subfamily, Oxaeinae. The shifting of bulk of taxa into Apidae has increased its volume as the largest Family of Apoidea. Subfamily groupings under family Megachilidae have been reduced to only two subcategories namely Fideliinae and Megachilinae. Precisely, majority of changes took place in Family Apidae and Megachilidae. Following taxonomic framework has been largely adopted with due permission from Dr. C. D. Michener fascinating book "Bees of the World" (2000) and is presented here befitting genera known from our specified region. The opinion behind this presentation is to facilitate further pending taxonomic revisions of thousands of species world over.
I remind here that our specified Indian region includes "Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangla Desh, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar". Flexibility is there for the bees found in the countries ranging from Turkey in the west, moving through south Asia towards India, south of China, Malaya Peninsula upto Singapore. Those bee species which are common to mainland upto Singapore and recorded from Sumatra, Java, Borneo, New Guinea etc. or vice versa, have also been included in this taxonomic catalogue. Author has found several species of bees known common to our specified Indian region and the "flexible zone". Therefore their inclusion becomes a necessity in this work. The record from beyond our specified region is little incomplete in this work, until its release. However, efforts are being made so that extra countries in the flexible zone would be completely included in this work.
Click the name of a family or subfamily to open the series of webpages containing detailed notes and listing of their tribes, genera and subgenera consequently, for the whole world:
S.
No.
Names of Families/Subfamilies
1. Family Stenotritidae Cockerell
2. Family Colletidae Lepeletier
A. Subfamily Colletinae Lepeletier
B. Subfamily Diphaglossinae Vachal
C. Subfamily Xeromelissinae Cockerell
D. Subfamily Hylaeinae Viereck
E. Subfamily Euryglossinae Michener
3. Family Andrenidae Latreille
A. Subfamily Alocandreninae Michener
B. Subfamily Andreninae Latreille
C. Subfamily Panurginae Leach
4. Family Halictidae Thomson
A. Subfamily Rophitinae Schenck
B. Subfamily Nomiinae Robertson
C. Subfamily Nomioidinae Bö rner
D. Subfamily Halictinae Thomson
5. Family Melittidae Schenck
A. Subfamily Dasypodainae Börner
B. Subfamily Meganomiinae Michener
C. Subfamily Melittinae Schenck
6. Family Megachilidae Latreille
A. Subfamily Fideliinae Cockerell
B. Subfamly Megachilinae Latreille
7. Family Apidae Latreille
A. Subfamily Xylocopinae Latreille
B. Subfamily Nomadinae Latreille
C. Subfamily Apinae Latreille
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.