View article

The rich bee fauna of Mexico encompasses 8 families and 153 genera, with approximately 1,589 currently recognized species. Due to gaps in collecting and the paucity of current revisions, the apifauna of Mexico is certainly much richer, perhaps well in excess of 2,000 species. By comparison, 3,745 species are recorded from the continental United States, whereas Panama has fewer than 400 species. The Apoidea ofMexico are ofdiverse origins, but little isknown about the evolution of Mexico's fauna. The oldest fossil, Apoidea (96 million to 74 million years old), belongs to a genus of social bees, as does the only fossil bee known from Mexico (Middle Miocene).

Although the history of taxonomy on Mexican bees spans 230 years, most species have been described during the twentieth century. Three specialists Cockerell, Cresson, and Timberlake contributed more than half of the present total. The species composition of the fauna by families is as follows: Andrenidae 30'1.,; Anthophoridae 29'1..; Apidae 5%; Colletidae 5%; Halictidae 12%; Megachilidae 18%; Melittidae and Oxaeidae, each less than 1%. These percentages are probably biased toward Andrenidae and Anthophoridae, as most of the 58'10of the genera that have been revised belong to these two families. Four of the 155 genera of bees and an additional eight subgenera are endemic to Mexico. There is no reliable estimate of endemism at the species level for any of the families except Andrenidae, for which it is 53%. Genera that attain their greatest diversity in Mexico include