Abstract
ON September 24, some years ago, I collected at Mesilla, New Mexico, four examples of a wild bee of the genus Epeolus, the species being probably identical with Epeolus bardus of Cresson. In every one of these specimens the second transversocubital nervure is incomplete, ts lower half being wanting, on one or both sides. In one example only is the nervure incomplete on both sides; in the other three it is incomplete on the right side only. Such aberrations are not very uncommon among bees, but they usually occur in single examples, and this is the best instance known to me of their being inherited by a number of individuals. What is here clearly a sport seems in a fair way to become a racial character, and we seem to have a. good example of Bateson's “discontinuous variation.” In the genus Halictus certain species have only two submarginal cells, instead of the usual three, and the same is true of Andrena. These peculiar species are related to different groups of the genera to which they belong, so that if it is proposed to regard them as pertaining to distinct subgenera (or genera) by reason of their venation, it becomes necessary to propose several subgeneric names instead of one, because of the independent evolution of the species. That this evolution has resulted from the perpetuation of sports such as that described above we can hardly doubt, but we are not thereby compelled to admit that it may not also be beneficial to the species.
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COCKERELL, T. Variation in a Bee. Nature 64, 158 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/064158b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/064158b0
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