Cuckoo Bumble Bees (Bombus (Psithyrus))

Martin, SJ

Abstract

There are about 250 species of bumble bees, genus Bombus, of which 30 have evolved into social parasites known as cuckoo bumble bees. All cuckoo bumble bees were at one time placed in their own genus, Psithyrus, which is now treated as a monophyletic subgenus within Bombus. That is, they appear to share a single evolutionary origin from a presumably parasitic ancestor, rather than each species evolving separately from its free-living host species.

Citation

Martin, S. (2019). Cuckoo Bumble Bees (Bombus (Psithyrus)). In C. Starr (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Social Insects. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_33-1

• Acceptance Date: May 11, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Aug 24, 2019
• Publication Date: Aug 24, 2019
• Deposit Date: Mar 2, 2020
• Publisher: Springer
• Book Title: Encyclopedia of Social Insects
• ISBN: 9783319903064-(online)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_33-1
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_33-1
• Related Public URLs: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4