Megachile (Eutricharaea) hera Bingham, 1897

Megachile (Eutricharaea) hera Bingham, 1897

Megachilidae: Megachilinae: Megachilini: Megachile: Eutricharaea

Megachile punjaubensis Cameron, 1906
Megachile bombayensis Cameron, 1908
Megachile cratodonta Cameron, 1908

INDIA: Chhattisgarh: Barnawapara wildlife sanctuary, 14-18. viii.2019, 1♀, 2♂, sweep net, coll. Bhojeshwari Sahu.

Colour: Body black, tegulae dark brown, black legs with white hairs.
Female:
General description: Body length 12.43 mm, body black with white apical bands on metasoma.
Head: Face, gena with pale dense white pubescence; clypeus with long white shiny hairs, coarsely punctate and having a median broad impunctate line,; triangular shiny impunctate area on the supraclypeal region medially near the base of the clypeus; one antennal suture meeting the outer margin of the antennal socket, antennae with black scape and pedicel, fuscous flagellum; inter antennal distance longer than inter ocellar distance; mandible four dentate; four segmented labial palp, two basal segment long and last two segment small.
Mesosoma: Black, finely punctate with pale white shiny hairs at the outer margin of mesosoma; scutum and scutellum densely punctate; tegulae dark brown; wings translucent; legs black with pale white to fulvous pubescence, femur bare on outer side and dense white pubescence on inner side, claws simple.
Metasoma: T1-T5 finely punctured, with white apical hair bands and black spines laterally, T6 covered with suberect black hairs; sterna 2-5 with orange scopa, S6 covered with dense black hairs.
Male:
General description: Body black, body length 11.79 mm, smaller than female, with yellowish hair on face, mesosoma and metasoma.
Head: Face, gena and hypostomal area with dense pale white to yellow pubescence; inter antennal distance longer than inter ocellar distance; antennae black, F1 longer than pedicel; mandible four dentate.
Mesosoma: Pale white long pubescence on outer margin of mesosoma; scutum and scutellum disc finely punctate with fine sparsely distributed hairs; scutellum ridged and slightly hanging on metanotum; tegulae dark brown; legs black with white hairs.
Metasoma: T1 with long white pubescence, T1-T4 with apical band of pale white hairs, T6 coarsely punctured with black hairs, T7 with lateral spines; sternum with white apical hair band.

M. hera may be confused with M. vigilens due to the size and similar pubescence on face and metasoma however this may be differentiated to M. Vigilens by following set of characters: M. hera has golden yellow sternal scopa; trochanter and femora of midlegs and hindlegs entirely black (Michener 2007).

India: Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Jammu.
Global: Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Chinese Taipei.

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