Megachile (Austrosarus) diasi new species

HOLOTYPE: Female. Length of fore wing 6·5 mm. Body black and tarsi dark brown. Pubescence of head, thorax, propodeum, first metasomal tergite and femora largely white. Sordid hairs across vertex, much of scutellum, erect hairs of sixth tergite and apical fringe of sixth sternite and also admixed on face and mesoscutum. Wings dark brown with black venation. Apical bands of first to fifth tergites and appressed hairs of sixth are pale golden; scopa golden. Erect hairs of tergites are off­white on second, becoming deeply golden on fourth. Length of hairs on vertex and mesoscutum 2 X an ocellar diameter. Apical margin of clypeus even and slightly concave, the impunctate edge slightly upturned, its width 3 X Material examined

18 females.

Holotype female: Fazenda Água Limpa, Federal District, 24.1.1979, A. Raw leg.

Paratypes: A. Raw leg: Cabeça de Veado (1 female); Chapada de Contagem (1 female); Centro de Pesquisas Agropecuárias do Cerrado of EMBPRAPA (1 female). B. F. S. Dias leg: Reserva do Roncador (Instituto Brasileira de Geografia e Estatística) in Malaise traps (9 females). R. I. P. de Freitas & G.S. de Freitas leg: Cabeça de Veado (3 females); Peninsular Norte (1 female); Reserva Roncador (1 female).

Distribution

The species has been found only in the Federal District of Brazil.

Flowers

The bees visited Aspilia foliacea, Cuphea linarioides Pohl ex Benth., C. spermacoce, Eriope complicata, Eriosema floribundum, Stylosanthes guianensis and Turnera arcuota Urban (Turneraceae).

Type repositories

The holotype is deposited in the collection of the Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras of the Universidade de São Paulo in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil. Paratypes are in the collections of Instituto Brasileira de Geografia e E statística in Brasília, Departamento de Zoologia of the Universidade de Brasília, Departamento de Zoologia of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte and the collection of the author.

The species is dedicated to Dr. Braulio F. S. Dias of the Biodiversity Office at the Ministry of the Environment in Brasilia who collected nine of the eighteen specimens examined.