Mitteilungen aus dem geologisch-palaeontologischen Institut und 
der Bernsteinsammlung der Universität Königsberg i. Pr. Nr. 3. 
Descriptions 
of Hymenoptera from Baltic Amber. 
By T. D. A. Cockerell, University of Colorado. 
I am greatly indebted to Dr. A. Tornquist for tlie opportunity 
of studying the very interesting specimens described below. Among 
the amber insects in the collection at Königsberg, out of more than 
100000 specimens, only those here described (9 species, represented by 
20 individuals) are bees. This extreme rarity of Apoidea is compen- 
sated for by the interesting character of the species, representing as 
they do undescribed genera, throwing much light on the evolution of 
the higher bees of today. The wasps and the proctotrypid sent with 
the bees, although undescribed, and carrying their respective genera 
far back into the past, do not represent new genera. The social wasp 
(Palaeovespa) belongs to a genus already known from the American 
Miocene, and very close to modern Vespa. The others are strictly of 
modern genera. The indications are that we must go to the Eocene 
or even to the Cretaceous, to find the beginnings of most of the 
modern genera of wasps; but the higher bees seem to have evolved 
more recently, and in the amber materials we have genuine ,,stem- 
forms“ of the Apidae, Bombidae and Megachilidae. None of the amber 
bees seen by me are related to the lower bees of today, such as 
Colletes, Prosopis or Halictus / it is very likely that these genera were 
already fully evolved during the Oligocene. The occurrence of bees 
iu amber is not a new discovery, although the present paper contains 
the first detailed descriptions of bees from Baltic amber. My colleague 
Dr. Hellems points out to me that as early as about 89 A. D. Martial 
wrote the following verse which is singularly appropriate at the 
present moment: 
De Ape Electro Inclusa. 
Et latet, et lucet Phaetontide condita gutta, 
Ut videatur apis nectare clausa suo; 
Dignum tantorum pretium tulit illa laborum, 
Credibile est ipsam sic voluisse mori, 
Schriften d. Physik. -Ökonom. Gesellschaft. Jahrgang L. 
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