54 
Psyche 
[Vol. 94 
Parker”. 16 males, 18 females, San Miguel de Bernuy, 14 km N 
Cantelejo; 15 males, 1 1 females, Cantalejo, 50 km NNE Segovia; 10 
males, 12 females, Fuentiduena, 66 km N Segovia; 10 males, 7 
females, Aguilafuente, 37 km N Segovia. The holotype will be de- 
posited in the collection of the U.S. National Museum (Washington, 
DC), paratypes in the collections of the British Museum (London), 
Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris), Natur-Museum 
Senckenberg (Frankfurt), Zoological Institute (Leningrad), E. 
Asensio, and the Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory. 
Discussion. Protosmia asensioi belongs to a group of poorly 
known and rarely collected Palearctic species. They are here 
included in Protosmia because they share with typical Protosmia a 
number of apomorphies including: fine transverse carinules on the 
pronotal lobe; hind coxa carinate; male tergum VI with lateral flap; 
male tergum VII and sterna V and VI hidden, not heavily sclero- 
tized; female clypeus not overhanging labrum; female labrum with 
erect apical tuft of hair. Several of these characters are held in 
common with Heriades, but two, the transverse carinules on the 
pronotal lobe and the lateral flap on male tergum VI, are unique to 
Protosmia. Further, Protosmia lack distinctive characters found in 
Heriades such as the anteriorly carinate metanotum and the carinate 
basal propodeal zone. 
Males of the asensioi group are abundantly distinct from typical 
Protosmia. Salient differences include the lack of a genal crease, 
median flagellomeres longer than broad, margin of tergum VI later- 
ally rounded rather than angled, sternum I without a large ventral 
projection, and margin of sternum II with a fringe of long hair and 
without a deep median notch. Females, however, are not so easily 
differentiated. In fact, the only differences discovered, and these are 
slight, seem to be smaller body size, distance between mandibular 
teeth nearly equal, upper mandibular cutting edge a distinct arc 
ending dorsally in slightly acute tooth, and the absence of narrow 
impunctate apical margins on terga I and II. 
Besides P. asensioi, this group includes P. minutula (Perez) 
(= Osmia cataniae Strand, new synonymy), previously included in 
Hoplitis (Micreriades) (Tkalcu 1977); P. decipiens (Benoist), pre- 
viously placed in Heriades (Eutrypetes) (Popov 1955) and known 
only in the female; P. limbata (Benoist), included by Mavromousta- 
kis (1955) in Chelostoma and also known only from the female; and 
P. pulex (Benoist), known only in the male. (These are all new 
