Ctenoplectrini

The Ctenoplectrini are a small (about 20 species), rarely collected, aberrant group of apid bees with short tongues modified scopa and large comb-like tibial spurs adapted to collect and carry a mixture of floral oils and pollen. These unusual modifications had led many early authors to place them in their own family, the Ctenoplectridae, as their relationships to other bees were obscured by their morphological anomalies. Recent analyses clearly indicate that they are a specialized offshoot within the subfamily Apinae. They occur in Africa, southeastern Asia, extending into Australia (1 species). Nests are known from few species only, which use existing small holes in wood and stone or old nests of other bees, which they provision with a mixture of pollen and floral oil, exclusively gathered from plants of a few genera of the family Cucurbitaceae. The thorax is somewhat cylindrical, presumably correlated to their nesting habits. A few African species are presumably cleptoparasites on the non-parasitic species, and these are traditionally placed in their own genus (Ctenoplectrina), though this apparently makes the genus Ctenoplectra paraphyletic.

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