Andrena (Pallandrena) morosa Cameron 1897

24. Andrena (Pallandrena) morosa Cameron, 1897 Andrena morosa Cameron, 1897: 119, ♀ [India: Uttarakhand, NHMUK, examined]. Andrena burkelii Bingham, 1908: 363, ♀ [India: Himachal Pradesh, ZSI, examined by photograph] syn. nov. Listed by Bingham (1897); Cameron (1897); Bingham (1908, as A. burkelii); Tadauchi & Matsumura (2007); Meena & Dey (2019); Ascher & Pickering (2023). Type material Holotype INDIA • ♀; Masuri [Mussoorie]; NHMUK. Other material examined INDIA • 1 ♀; Simla, Matiana; ZSI; ZSI0000008659 (syntype of A. burkelii). NEPAL • 1 ♀; Nawakot, Langtang Khola, Ghora Tabela; 3200 m a.s.l.; 3 Oct. 1982; C. Holzschuh leg.; OÖLM. Remarks Gusenleitner & Schwarz (2002) did not place A. morosa within a subgenus, and Tadauchi & Matsumura (2007) placed it within Andrena s. str. Fabricius, 1775. Examination of the holotype (Fig. 15) shows that it presents a strongly emarginate process of the labrum, and the ventral pollen-collecting hairs of the tibial scopae are long and strongly plumose. This strongly suggests placement in the subgenus Pallandrena Warncke, 1968, members of which are associated with the family Geraniaceae which has large pollen grains, necessitating sparse plumose scopal hairs. Indeed, the hind legs of the type specimen are covered in large grains that are visible to the naked eye (Fig. 15D). We therefore place A. morosa into the subgenus Pallandrena, and hypothesise that it will be caught on Geranium or related genera in the future. Andrena burkelii was described from Matiana from an altitude of 8000 feet. Bingham mentioned that it had a body length of 12 mm, and that it was unlike any other species of Andrena he had examined. Possible type depositories were discussed by Wood (2024b), but examination of the ZSI website revealed type material in that collection. Examination of the photographed female specimen (possibly automatically the holotype, but it is unclear how many specimens are included in the type series) shows that it displays the same characters (particularly the same body size, pubescence, and decoloured tergal margins) as A. morosa, and indeed the hind tibial scopae are completely covered in the same large pollen grains. Within the Western Himalayas, the locus typicus of Matiana is only 100 km to the north-west of Mussoorie, the locus typicus of A. morosa. We therefore synonymise A. burkelii with A. morosa syn. nov. Distribution India (Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand) & Nepal *.