IDENTIFICATION PAGE # 10

This leafcutter is from May, 2019 -- it was feeding on shrubby blue salvia & you identified it as Megachile (Megachiloides). What are the attributes of this bee that flag it as subgenus Megachiloides? Is it the large, broad body? The single cutting edge in the first interspace of the mandible? (Does this bee technically have four or five teeth?)

I have these Megachiloides species listed as possibilities for the Lower Rio Grande Valley: M. deflexa, M. integra, M. instita, M. maurata, M. mucorosa, M. oenetherae, M. parksi and M. victoriana. Megachile chomskyi was identified farther north.

I guess M. oenethera & M. chomskyi are out, because those have 3 teeth. (As per your note below, M. integra, deflexa and parksi aren't good choices.)

The note you sent us on May 25, 2019 said: "Megachile sp - perhaps a rather non-descript Megachiloides (mandibles as in Megachiloides) and 14 mm. No Megachiloides reported for Valley - perhaps parksi, mucorosa, integra or deflexa (some MX records so possible but ocelli equidistant to vertex and eye so not deflexa - clypeal margin entire so not integra - only tip of S6 with black hair so not parksi - females of victoriana and mucorosa unknown?)

Should I assume this is definitely not M. deflexa, M integra or or M parksi? But instead an uncatalogued species, or one in which the female has not been described?

Megachile (Megachiloides)

Size: 14 mm (female))

Associated plant at NBC:

Shrubby blue sage

(Salvia ballotiflora)

Plant family: Lamiaceae

When seen: May 2019