Description of the male of Lepidotrigona nitidiventris (Smith, 1857), redescription of the female holotype and additional morphological data on the workers (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini)

Abstract

We describe for the first time the male of Lepidotrigona nitidiventris (Smith, 1857), emphasizing the structure of the male genital capsule and metasomal sterna four through seven. Our identification of the male as L. nitidiventris is based on our examination of the worker holotype (type locality Mt. Ophir, Peninsular Malaysia) which we found to match workers from the same nest as males found in western Thailand. The species belongs to the L. nitidiventris species group, comprising L. latipes (Friese), L. palavanica (Cockerell), L. trochanterica (Cockerell), with L. nitidiventris as the type species of the genus. No males of these species were previously known. We examined the holotype workers of the three other species and confirm all four as clearly different species. We propose, however, that the obviously smaller L. palavanica should not be included in the large-sized group of Lepidotrigona.