Megachile (Thaumatosoma)Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii Megachile (Thaumatosoma) remeata

The genus Megachile includes the subgenus Thaumutosomu that contains 2 Australian species, T. duhoulaii (Smith) and T. remeala (Cockerell).

Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii, Geraldton WA © Gary Taylor
Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii, Geraldton WA © Gary Taylor
Megachile (Thaumatosoma) remeata, Murchison WA © Marc Newman
Megachile (Thaumatosoma) remeata, Murchison WA © Marc Newman

The genus Thaumatosoma was erected by Smith (1865) for his species T. duboulaii based upon a single male collected in Western Australia. The female of T. duboulaii was described and figured by Meade-Waldo (1915) from material collected at Yallingup, and whilst there was doubt casted on the ID, later collections of males and females at Drummond Cove, WA, support Meade-Waldo’s association of the sexes.

Examination of the female of C. (H.) remeata (Cockerell) showed it to be very close to that of T. duboulaii. Males, associated with females of C. remeata from collections at Broken Hill, NSW.3


Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii, Geraldton WA © Gary Taylor
Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii, Geraldton WA © Gary Taylor
  • Scientific Classification
  • Kingdom: Animalia
  • Phylum: Arthropoda
  • Subphylum: Hexapoda
  • Class: Insecta
  • Informal: Pterygotes
  • Order: Hymenoptera
  • Superfamily: Apoidea
  • Informal: Apiformes
  • Family: Megachilidae
  • Subfamily: Megachilinae
  • Tribe: Megachilini
  • Genus: Megachile
  • Subgenus: infrageneric Thaumatosoma
  • Species:
    • Megachile duboulaii
    • Megachile

Footnote & References

  1. Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii, Geraldton WA © Gary Taylor
  2. Megachile (Thaumatosoma) remeata, Murchison WA © Marc Newman
  3. A Reinstatement and Revision of the Genus Thaumatosoma SMITH (Apoidea: Megachilidae), by J. King and E. M . Exley, Wiley Online Library, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1440-6055.1985.tb00193.x
  4. Megachile (Thaumatosoma) Smith, 1865
  5. Thaumatosoma, Exotic Bee ID, http://idtools.org/id/bees/exotic/factsheet.php?name=17681
  6. Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii (Smith, 1865), Atlas of Living Australia, https://bie.ala.org.au/species/Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii

Megachile (Thaumatosoma)Megachile (Thaumatosoma) duboulaii Megachile (Thaumatosoma) remeata

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