Habropoda cressonii (Dalla Torre, 1896)

Anthophora mucida Cresson, 1878: 191 [♀]. Preoccupied, not Anthophora mucida Gribodo, 1873.

     Holotype ♀. USA, Colorado, by Morrison [ANSP no. 2284].

Podalirius cressonii Dalla Torre, 1896: 264. Replacement name for Anthophora mucida Cresson, 1878.

Emphoropsis mucida var. johnsoni Cockerell, 1905: 59 [♀, ♂].

     Holotype ♀. USA, Colorado, foothills near Horsetooth Mountain [nr. Fort Collins], flying over a patch of larkspur, 12 May 1903, by S.A. Johnson [CAS no. 15482].

Emphoropsis mucida var. ventralis Michener, 1936: 3 [♀].

     Holotype ♀. USA, Wyoming, Rawlins, 26 June 1920, about 41 47’ N., 107 15 W., 6800 feet elevation, by Lutz [AMNH].

Taxonomic Notes: Cockerell (1905: 59) indicated that A. mucida Cresson had the thorax entirely pale pubescent, and he (and H.L. Viereck) felt that H. morrisoni (Cresson, 1878) was the male of Cresson’s species; this was stated again in Cockerell (1906: 100) and Lutz and Cockerell (1920: 590) but has not been supported by subsequent workers ().

Cockerell (1906: 100), Lutz and Cockerell (1920: 590), and Michener (1936: 3) also did not consider Dalla Torre’s (1896) replacement name as valid; Lutz and Cockerell (1920) indicating that Dalla Torre proposed the new name only because he placed Gribodo’s (1873) taxon in the genus Podalirius Latrielle, 1802 (=Anthophora (Anthophora) Latreille, 1803), a name which was later suppressed by Commission Opinion 151, Direction 4 (ICZN 1944). The name Emphoropsis Ashmead, 1899 was applied to all Habropoda Smith, 1854 species occurring in North America until it was synonymized under the latter by Brooks (1988: 438).

Though I am now convinced that the specimen of Habropoda tristissima (Cockerell, 1904) I have recorded from BC is that species, my original identification was also of H. morrisoni – the similarity could explain the record of Criddle et al. (1924: 99), for this species in Canada, based on the use of “Anthophora johnson Ckll”; to my knowledge, this taxon does not exist (see Michener 1951, Hurd 1979), and likely represents Emphoropsis mucida var. johnsoni Cockerell, 1905, a taxon which Cockerell (1905: 99; 1907: 256) subsequently considered a valid species (though cited it in the former as Emphoropsis johnsoni (Ckll).

Distribution in Canada: Criddle et al. 1924 [BC, as Anthophora johnsoni Cockerell - dubious record/indentification]

This species is not confirmed for Canada, though material may be Habropoda tristissima (Cockerell, 1904).