[ID] Bombus cryptarum?

[Jason Green]

Hi all

Is this Bombus cryptarum, from the B. lucorum complex thing?

4/6/09, on spilt sap @ 13:20pm

Not too sure on size...
...but has distinctive 'nick' in yellow waist band

Thanks for looking!

Take care,

Jason

[eucera]

Cryptarum is (as its name suggests) a very cryptic species. The only sure fire way of separating them from magnus and lucorum is using genetics. SOME queens have a dark S shaped mark on the thoracic collar (just in front of the wingbases). A nick in the band on T1 is certainly no guide.

B. soroeensis (which is sometimes called the broken-banded bumblebee) does have a gap in the centre of the yellow band on T1. This is a very unreliable character, as old specimens of B. terrestris and all the oher lucorum group can also show this when they are a little worn. This is exactly where the folded wings abrade the hairs. The only way of doing B. soroeensis confidently is to look at the mandibles. There is a very easy to use character there which is unique to soroeensis, and works for ALL the colour forms of the species, across its entire range (I have black soroeensis with red-tails from Estonia and Bulgaria in my collection, and black soroeensis with white tails from Estonia).