Sistemática de Scaura Schwarz, 1938 (Hymenoptera: Apidae, Meliponini), com notas biológicas

Abstract

Systematics of Scaura Schwarz, 1938 (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini), with biological notes. Scaura Schwarz 1938 is a neotropical little diverse and distributed genus. It’s widely composed of workers with hind basitarsus as wide as or wider than their tibia. The genus comprised five valid species, but with evidence that there was a complex of species to be described. It was obtained dry specimens, in various national and foreign collections, and studying this material, a taxonomic revision and a phylogenetic analysis of all species of the genus were proposed, resulting in a total of seven valid species: with three new species and synonymy of Scaura tenuis (Ducke, 1916) under Scaura latitarsis (Friese, 1900). An Illustrated worker identification key was proposed, and each species previously described was redescribed to have a standardized description with the addition of males and queens when possible. Every species had its geographic distribution updated, as well as a compilation of data on nesting biology and behavior. The phylogenetic analysis resulted in Scaura as a monophyletic genus, and Schwarzula Moure, 1946 as its sister group. It is noteworthy that the relationship between the Scaura species with short metasoma still needs to have phylogenetic relationships best established. The Scaura species with short metasoma needs more morphological caracteres and new phylogenetic analyses for suggest better relationships.