Comprehensive Description
provided by Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology
Melissodes (Melissodes) paroselae Cockerell
This is a polylectic species occurring from Baja California to extreme southern California, east across Arizona and New Mexico to extreme southwestern Texas and south through Sonora and Chihuahua to Tepic, Nayarit in Mexico (LaBerge, 1956). LaBerge records a long list of host flowers, including Larrea. We have found females collecting Larrea pollen in a number of our sampling sites in southeastern Arizona and New Mexico, but only at Antelope Pass in the Pelancillo Mountains, Hidalgo County, New Mexico, were they present in sufficient numbers to provide competition to Melissodes tristis.
- bibliographic citation
- Hurd, Paul D., Jr. and Linsley, E. Gorton. 1975. "The principal Larrea bees of the southwestern United States (Hymenoptera, Apoidea)." Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology. 1-74. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.00810282.193
