J. HYM. RES. Vol. 7(1), 1998, pp. 94-101 A New Species of the Baltic Amber Bee Genus Electrapis (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Michael S. Engel Department of Entomology, Comstock Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA Abstract. — Electrapis stilbonota, a new species of fossil bee is described and figured from two female specimens preserved in a single piece of Eocene Baltic amber. The species is assigned to a new subgenus, Melikertes n. subg., characterized by the sparse hairs of the scutellum, outwardly curved scape, few distal hamuli, absence of hind tibial spurs, tear-drop shaped tegula, and absence of setal bands on the apices of the metasomal terga. The specimens of E. stilbonota are morpho-logically workers and were presumably from a highly eusocial colony. The classification of Elec-trapis among apines is briefly discussed, and the subtribe Electrapina proposed to accommodate the genus. The proposal that Electrap>is and its presumed sister. Apis, coexisted in time is briefly examined and found to be unsupported. The Eocene Baltic amber contains a fas-cinating, although uncommon, bee fauna. Those few specimens that are known pres-ent the picture of an assemblage of groups unlike anything seen today. Of the species represented in the Baltic amber only one is currently assigned to a modern genus, this being Andrena zvrisleyi Salt (1931), al-though the generic assignment of this spe-cies is of considerable question and it is possibly a melittid (Michener and Poinar 1996). The remainder, however, are as-signed to extinct genera whose affinities are difficult to ascertain and in some cases cannot confidently be placed to tribe. By comparison, bees of the Dominican amber, which is Oligo-Miocene in age (Grimaldi 1995), are referable to modern day genera or extinct groups closely allied to extant genera (Engel 1995, 1996, 1997, Michener and Poinar 1996, Rozen 1996). In 1909 Prof. Theodore D.A. Cockerell described a number of Baltic amber Hy-menoptera among which was the genus Electrapis (1909a). The genus is a member of the corbiculate apine tribe Apini which contains only one other genus, the familiar honey bees (Apis L.). Electrapis was erected to accommodate the type species Apis me-liponoides Buttel-Reepen (1906) which, as the specific epithet suggests, possessed characters both Buttel-Reepen and Cock-erell took to be intermediate between the Apini and their sister tribe, the Meliponini (the stingless bees). Since the time of its description, Electrapis has acquired a total of nine species segregated into three sub-genera. Table 1 summarizes the current classification of the known species. Herein I describe a tenth species of Elec-trapis and assign it to a new subgenus, Me-likertes. In the descriptions the following abbreviations are used for morphological terms: F, flagellomere; S, sternum; T, ter-gum. All measurements were made using an ocular micrometer on a WILD-M5a mi-croscope and are in millimeters. All mea-sures are approximate since the best po-sition for viewing a specific structure was not always achievable owing to the cur-vature of the amber surface. Measure-ments which were not possible to make for a given specimen are indicated by an asterisk (*). Values given in the specific de-scription are for the holotype with the cor-responding measure of the paratype indi-cated in brackets.
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