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Bee surveys bring valuable information regarding species distribution, phenology, and their interactions with host plants, and thus are important to bee conservation, especially in the present scenario of drastic declines reported worldwide. The Brazilian bee fauna has been surveyed intensively since the late 1960s, but the state-of-the-art of this research topic has not been explored in detail. Our main goal is to analyze the scientific literature through a systematic review of Brazilian bee surveys, describing (i) spatial sampling gaps; (ii) preferred sampling frequency and methods; (iii) species identification and vouchering practices; (iv) gender participation; and (v) how the studies are distributed among scientific journals. Our review includes 213 published studies, of which half targeted the entire bee fauna (Apoidea: Apidae sensu lato) while the other half targeted the orchid bees (Euglossini). Sampling sites are predominant in eastern Brazil, particularly within the Atlantic Forest. Hand netting bees for 1 year long was the most frequent sampling protocol to capture bees. Taxonomic identification and voucher deposition practices were mentioned in most of the papers. Men and women published almost the same number of papers, but women were less frequent as lead or senior authors and appeared less as prolific researchers. Most papers were published in a few Brazilian journals. We highlight that surveys in understudied areas are needed, especially in Amazon. Monitoring bees in previously surveyed locations is also encouraged to investigate temporal changes in bee assemblages, such as population declines, impacts of land-use changes, and effects of climate change.

Three new genera of Protandrenini bees from South America are described. Luisanthrena new genus is proposed to include L. ruzae, new species (from Ecuador) and L. vargasllosai (Gonzalez & Alvarado, 2019), new combination (from Peru). The new genus Cisanthrena includes only the unusual species Cisanthrena perforata n. sp. from forested areas of the Andes in Peru. In addition, Austellurgus new genus is proposed to accommodate A. avulsus (Ramos & Melo, 2006), new combination (southeastern Brazil).

RESUMO Este artigo trata das práticas curatoriais adotadas na seção de entomologia do Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo. Adicionalmente, apresenta uma breve introdução sobre sua origem, a formação dos museus de história natural, os paradigmas adotados pela curadoria desde a formação do acervo, bem como os desafios para manter e disponibilizar as coleções no cenário atual de carência de técnicos e pesquisadores, inadequação de infraestrutura, diminuição do investimento em ciência e tecnologia e crescente aporte de material biológico para instituições oficiais feito por fontes externas ao museu. ABSTRACT This article discusses the curatorial practices adopted in the Entomology section of the Museum of Zoology of the University of Sao Paulo (MZ-USP). Moreover, it presents a brief introduction on the formation of Natural History Museums and the origins of the MZ-USP, exploring the paradigms adopted by the curatorship since the collection creation and the challenges in maintaining and making collections available in the current scenario of scarcity of technicians and researchers, inadequate infrastructure, decreased investment in Science and Technology, and increasing supply of biological samples from outside sources to official institutions.

The genus Rhophitulus Ducke, 1907 is a large and complex group of bees of the tribe Protandrenini comprising small, slender, mostly black ground-nesting species that are restricted to South America. We describe a new species of Rhophitulus from Parque Nacional Sao Joaquim, Urubici, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Rophitulus ater sp. nov. is distinctive and easily distinguished from other species of the genus by a unique combination of morphological characters in both sexes, but especially by the following: dull black body, coarsely and densely punctate integument, basal area of metapostnotum depressed and areolate rugose, posterior margin of hind tibia and pygidial fimbria of female with blackish pilosity, and characters of the male genitalia with hidden sterna. The new species is closely associated with Blumenbachia catharinensis (Loasaceae), which is restricted to cloud forest of the southeastern rim of Serra Geral. Flowers of B. catharinensis are pollen and nectar resources and mating sites for the new species.

Bees are presumed to have arisen in the early to mid-Cretaceous coincident with the fragmentation of the southern continents and concurrently with the early diversification of the flowering plants. Among the main groups of bees, Andreninae sensu lato comprise about 3000 species widely distributed with greatest and disjunct diversity in arid areas of North America, South America, and the Palearctic region. Here, we present the first comprehensive dated phylogeny and historical biogeographic analysis for andrenine bees, including representatives of all currently recognized tribes. Our analyses rely on a dataset of 106 taxa and 7952 aligned nucleotide positions from one mitochondrial and six nuclear loci. Andreninae is strongly supported as a monophyletic group and the recovered phylogeny corroborates the commonly recognized clades for the group. Thus, we propose a revised tribal classification that is congruent with our phylogenetic results. The time-calibrated phylogeny and ancestral range reconstructions of Andreninae reveal a fascinating evolutionary history with Gondwana patterns that are unlike those observed in other subfamilies of bees. Andreninae arose in South America during the Late Cretaceous around 90 Million years ago (Ma) and the origin of tribes occurred through a relatively long time-window from this age to the Miocene. The early evolution of the main lineages took place in South America until the beginning of Paleocene with North American fauna origin from it and Palearctic from North America as results of multiple lineage interchanges between these areas by long-distance dispersal or hopping through landmass chains. Overall, our analyses provide strong evidence of amphitropical distributional pattern currently observed in Andreninae in the American continent as result at least three periods of possible land connections between the two American landmasses, much prior to the Panama Isthmus closure. The andrenine lineages reached the Palearctic region through four dispersal events from North America during the Eocene, late Oligocene and early Miocene, most probably via the Thulean Bridge. The few lineages with Afrotropical distribution likely originated from a Palearctic ancestral in the Miocene around 10 Ma when these regions were contiguous, and the Sahara Desert was mostly vegetated making feasible the passage by several organisms. Incursions of andrenine bees to North America and then onto the Old World are chronological congruent with distinct periods when open-vegetation habitats were available for trans-continental dispersal and at the times when aridification and temperature decline offered favorable circumstances for bee diversification.

Ants, an ecologically successful and numerically dominant group of animals, play key ecological roles as soil engineers, predators, nutrient recyclers, and regulators of plant growth and reproduction in most terrestrial ecosystems. Further, ants are widely used as bioindicators of the ecological impact of land use. We gathered information of ant species in the Atlantic Forest of South America. The ATLANTIC ANTS data set-which is part of the ATLANTIC SERIES data papers-is a compilation of ant records from collections (18,713 records), unpublished data (29,651 records), and published sources (106,910 records; 1059 references), including papers, theses, dissertations, and book chapters published from 1886 to 2020. In total, the data set contains 153,818 ant records from 7,636 study locations in the Atlantic Forest, representing 10 subfamilies, 99 genera, 1,114 ant species identified with updated taxonomic certainty, and 2,235 morphospecies codes. Our data set reflects the heterogeneity in ant records, which include ants sampled at the beginning of the taxonomic history of myrmecology (the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) and more recent ant surveys designed to address specific questions in ecology and biology. The data set can be used by researchers to develop strategies to deal with different macroecological and regional-wide questions, focusing on assemblages, species occurrences and distribution patterns. Furthermore, the data can be used to assess the consequences of changes in land use in the Atlantic Forest on different ecological processes. No copyright restrictions apply to the use of this data set, but we request that authors cite this data paper when using these data in publications or teaching events.

Bees are presumed to have arisen in the early to mid-Cretaceous coincident with the fragmentation of the southern continents and concurrently with the early diversification of the flowering plants. Here, we apply DNA sequences from multiple genes to recover a dated phylogeny and historical biogeographic of andrenine bees, a large group of 3000 species mainly distributed in arid areas of North America, South America, and the Palearctic region. Our results corroborate the monophyly of Andreninae and points toward a South America origin for the group during the Late Cretaceous. Overall, we provide strong evidence of amphitropical distributional pattern currently observed in the American continent as result of faunal interchange in at least three historical periods, much prior to the Panama Isthmus closure. The Palearctic diversity is shown to have arisen from North America during the Eocene and Miocene, and the Afrotropical lineages likely originated from the Palearctic region in the Miocene when the Sahara Desert was mostly vegetated. The incursions from South to North America and then onto the Old World are chronological congruent with periods when open-vegetation habitats were available for trans-continental dispersal and at the times when aridification and temperature decline offered favorable circumstances for bee diversification.

Efforts to catalogue biodiversity and describe its spatial distribution represent one of the pillars of conservation science. Bee community inventories provide fundamental data for determining the geographical distribution, seasonal fluctuation, and richness and relative abundance of important pollinator species that inhabit a particular ecosystem. In the present work, the bee fauna of the largest Atlantic Forest remnant in the western region of São Paulo State was inventoried through systematic structured collections, being the first complete inventory of bees in this portion of the state. Malaise traps were installed in Parque Estadual Morro do Diabo (PEMD) and revisited monthly from December 2009 to February 2011. A total of 812 individuals were collected, belonging to 62 species, 34 genera and 14 bee tribes. All five Brazilian bee subfamilies were sampled, with Apinae and Halictinae being the most representative in number of species. The most abundant species were Schwarziana quadripunctata, Trigona spinipes and Plebeia remota. Of the collected species, 14% were kleptoparasites, and when the relative abundance is assessed disregarding the influence of eusocial bees (Meliponini), about 35% of the specimens are males; specimens that are not commonly sampled during traditional bee inventories employing most commonly entomological nets. The inventory of the bee fauna native to the PEMD serves as the basis for further studies and projects regarding the conservation and management of the local fauna and flora.

In Neotropical region, the subfamily Andreninae is commonly collected in temperate and subtropical areas with scarce records in tropical areas. Here, we provide a checklist of andrenine bees from Cerrado and describe two new species of Anthrenoides. Twenty-two bee species of Andreninae were recorded. The new species were recorded in the core area of Cerrado, on Brazilan Central Plateau. Anthrenoides kalungasp. nov. is known by a single female specimen from Chapada dos Veadeiros and it is easily recognized by the hairy mesosoma. Anthrenoides urbanaesp. nov. was collected in a grassland area of Cerrado, and is distinguished from other species by glossa and galea longer than compound eyes. A. urbanaesp. nov. is associated with flowers of Alstroemeria gardneri (Alstroemeriaceae) which are used as a source of food and mating sites. The small number of Andreninae bee species recorded on Cerrado is possibly a result of a shortfall of inventories that can be solved by an additional effort to sample these rare bees with specific methods like UV pan traps.

The bee genera Callonychium Brethes, Psaenythia Gerstaecker and Anthrenoides Ducke are newly recorded in Piaui State, northeastern Brazil. The species reported here are Callonychium brasilience (Ducke, 1907) and Psaenythia variabilis Ducke, 1908, and an as yet unidentified species of Anthrenoides. Images and all known distributional records of these species are also provided. The new occurrences reported herein expand the distribution range of the species to the Caatinga biome.

This catalogue lists the type specimens of Crabronidae and Sphecidae (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) deposited in the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil (MZUSP). The collection includes a total of 83 type specimens (17 holotypes, 66 paratypes), 82 of which belong to nine genera and 35 species of Crabronidae and only one of Sphecidae. All labels contents and additional information obtained from other available sources are presented. High resolution photographs of the primary types are also provided.

The Hymenoptera collection of the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil (MZSP) houses one of the most important collections for the Brazilian and Neotropical wasp faunas. The present catalogue lists the type specimens of Pompiloidea, Thynnoidea and Vespoidea (Insecta, Hymenoptera) deposited in the MZSP. The collection includes a total of 301 type specimens (66 holotypes, 27 lectotypes, 158 paratypes, 45 paralectotypes, and five syntpes), being 91 Pompiloidea (40 Mutillidae type specimens of 10 genera and 25 species, 51 Pompilidae type specimens of 4 genera and 27 species), 191 Vespoidea (15 genera and 85 species of Vespidae), and 18 Thynnoidea (eight genera and 12 species of Thynnidae). All information written in labels was compiled and is presented along with additional data from the original descriptions, MZSP records and other sources. We provice Specimage links to high resolution photographs of holotypes and lectotypes at the Hymenoptera image database of the Ohio State University.

Two new records of gynandromorphs in Xylocopa Latreille, 1802 (Hymenoptera, Apidae). Gynandromorphs are deviant morphological individuals with genetically distinct male and female tissues. Records of sex anomalies seems to be important to better understand the mechanisms regulating phenotypic expression. Herein, two new cases of gynandromorphs in carpenter bee species of Xylocopa from Brazil are described and figured: a mixed gynandromorph of the X. (Neoxylocopa) brasilianorum (Linnaeus, 1767) from São Paulo and a bilateral gynandromorph of the X. (Neoxylocopa) ordinaria Smith, 1874 from Sergipe.

Protandrenini includes approximately 420 species of short-tongued bees, which are exclusively distributed in the Americas (Michener 2007; Moure et al. 2007; Ascher & Pickering 2017). Members of this tribe are mostly found in xeric and temperate areas in South America, and their diversity is still greatly underestimated. In fact, a major challenge to the systematics of Protandrenini is the outstanding number of species unplaced in genera or awaiting formal description (Ruz & Chiappa 2004; Ramos & Melo 2006; Michener 2007; Moure et al. 2007; Ramos & Rozen 2014). In addition to several taxa currently considered of uncertain position within the tribe, many South American genera are in need of taxonomic revision, such as Rhophitulus Ducke, Anthrenoides Ducke, and Psaenythia Gerstaecker (Silveira et al. 2002; Michener 2007; Ramos & Melo 2010; Moure et al. 2007).

The present catalogue lists the bee types (Hymenoptera, Apidaes.l.) deposited in the Museu de Zoologia, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil (MZSP). The Hymenoptera collection of the MZSP is one of the most important collections for the Brazilian and Neotropical faunas, holding relatively large number of types and represented taxa. The Apidae collection includes a total of 473 type-specimens (101 holotypes, 30 lectotypes, 190 paratypes, 34 paralectotypes, and 119 syntypes) that represent 257 species currently classified in 88 genera, 22 tribes, and five subfamilies (Andreninae, Apinae, Colletinae, Halictinae, and Megachilinae). Label data and additional information from the MZSP registers, literature sources, and taxonomic remarks are given, including high-resolution photographs of holotypes and lectotypes available through links to Specimage (image database of The Ohio State University). RESUMOO presente catálogo apresenta uma lista dos espécimes tipo de abelhas (Hymenoptera, Apidaes.l.) depositados no Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil (MZSP). A coleção de Hymenoptera do MZSP representa uma das mais importantes coleções para a fauna brasileira e Neotropical, incluindo um número relativamente grande de tipos e táxons representados. A coleção de Apidae abriga um total de 473 espécimes-tipo (101 holótipos, 30 lectótipos, 190 parátipos, 34 paralectótipos e 119 síntipos) pertencentes a 257 espécies classificadas em 88 gêneros, 22 tribos e cinco subfamílias (Andreninae, Apinae, Colletinae, Halictinae, e Megachilinae). São apresentadas as informações das etiquetas, informações adicionais a partir dos registros do MZSP e da literatura publicada, e cometários taxônomicos. Fotografias em alta resolução dos holótipos e lectótipos estão disponibilizadas digitalmente através de links para o Specimage (banco de dados de imagens da Ohio State University).