Hi Matt,
The answer to both your questions is "Yes". Bombus cryptarum occurs from the south coast of England and extends north to the north coast of Scotland (I think it is also known from Orkney). It is clearly quite common and, according to at least one German colleague, the queens tend to fly earlier in the year than lucorum sensu stricto. We really have Murdo to thank for drawing attention to the distinctiveness of this species (although the presence of it in Britain has been known for many years but not, hitherto, fully appreciated). Unfortunately it is only queens of cryptarum, lucorum and magnus that can be distinguished on morphological characters alone. In some sites all three can be expected to occur together. Queens of magnus are straightforward enough to identify, but lucorum and cryptarum are sometimes a little bit tricky. No doubt BWARS will be interested in mapping cryptarum but, at present, there are very few confirmed records! This is one project where BWARS members can really contribute to the knowledge of our bumblebee fauna.
George
-----Original Message-----
From: bwars@yahoogroups.com [mailto:bwars@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Matt Smith
Sent: 21 April 2006 14:52
To: bwars@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [bwars] lucorum groupHi allA quick question or two. Assuming that Bombus cryptarum is a) a good species and b) here in the UK (as it seems to be from comments made by George & Murdo), will BWARS be mapping this species at some point. Also, does this mean that old, unvouchered B. lucorum records should now be considered as B.lucorum sensu lato?, and that we need to either start collecting vouchers or coming up with acceptable photos when recording either species from now on?I've just had a quick look at my few 'B.lucorum' queen specimens and they all look very similar to each other, but different from my one B.magnus specimen. Perhaps we should have a short workshop on separating these species at the BWARS meeting this autumn. I suppose that we should be grateful that 'our' B.terrestris queens have buff tails, at least we can still do these in the field.RegardsMattSend instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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