A new wood-nesting Neocorynura (Hymenoptera: Halictidae: Augochlorini) from Costa Rica, with notes on its biology

Abstract

We report here on a new species of Neocorynura from southern Costa Rica, only the third in this large (~150 spp.), primarily ground-nesting genus known to nest in wood. We describe the male, female, pupa, and nest of Neocorynura tica Smith-Pardo sp. nov. and provide information on its nest architecture and natural enemies. Neocorynura tica are small (~7 mm long), dark green bees with metallic greenish-yellow highlights and can be distinguished from most other Neocorynura by their small size and lack of metatibial spine, and especially from the allopatric N. rhytis (Vachal) by the lack of sculpturing on the mesoscutum and mesoscutellum. We found the cleptoparasitic phorid fly Megaselia sp. and a larva of a putative mutillid wasp attacking brood provisions of N. tica. Adults of N. tica were caught only in fragments of moist tropical forest, despite intensive sampling in nearby agricultural countryside, suggesting that this species may be forest-limited. We review existing information on nesting, social behavior, and parasitism in the genus, and briefly discuss the evolution of wood nesting behavior in the genus Neocorynura.