Lasioglossum (Dialictus) ascheri Gibbs, 2011

Gardner, Joel & Gibbs, Jason, 2022, New and little-known Canadian LasIOGLOssum (DIaLICTus) (Hymenoptera: Halictidae) and an emended key to species, The Canadian Entomologist (e 3) 154 (1), pp. 1-37 : 5

Lasioglossum (Dialictus) ascheri Gibbs, 2011

Lasioglossum (Dialictus) ascheri Gibbs 2011: 57 (holotype, ♀, deposited in AMNH; examined)

Lasioglossum (Dialictus) curculum Gibbs 2011: 80 (holotype, ♀, deposited in CNC; examined) new synonymy

Comments. Gibbs (2011) described L. ascheri and L. curculum each from two females. They are remarkably similar but differ in the absence and presence of a preapical mandibular tooth, respectively. A series of two females with and two without a preapical tooth on the mandible were examined from four sites within a 5.5-km radius in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada in 2011. It seems unlikely that two such rare species would occur together so near to the same place and time. No other known morphological characters separate the two putative species except the length of the branches of the inner metatibial spur, which is extremely subtle and may also be variable. No DNA barcodes are available for either species. With the lack of geographic separation and dubious utility of morphology, there is no longer sufficient evidence to support a two-species hypothesis. Lasioglossum ascheri is chosen as the valid name in the absence of publication priority.

Lasioglossum ascheri is a newly confirmed record for Canada. The four specimens examined were included in a Master’ s thesis by Nardone (2013) as L. cf. ascheri and are now deposited in WRME.