Taxonomical and behavioural studies on Megachile conjuncta (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae: Cressoniella)
Priyanka Kumari, Neelima R Kumar, Avtar K Sidhu and Kailash Chandra
The taxonomy and behaviour of Megachile conjuncta (Fabricius) is studied and presented in this paper. It was found to be gregarious while foraging as opposed to the solitary nature of bees in tribe Megachilini. Tribe Megachilini are also called solitary bees. Females construct nests alone, mass provision them, and lay eggs without any help. Hence, Megachile bees mostly are foraging singly while mass provisioning their cells. But Megachile conjuncta males and females were found to forage gregariously in good numbers. Important taxonomic characters of both sexes were studied and photographed. Male external genital and sternal slides were prepared and photographed. All these characters were illustrated in plates. Thirty seven morphological characters were measured and presented in table. Floral associations, specimen examined and old distribution have been also presented.