KARL V. KROMB Life History Notes on y Some Egyptian Solitary Wasps and Bees and Their Associates i (Hymenoptera: Aculeata).' SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOOLOGY ? 1969 NUMBER 19 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOOLOGY NUMBER 19 Karl v. Krombein Life H i s to ry Notes on Some Egyptian Solitary Wasps and Bees and Their Associates (Hymenoptera: Aculeata) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS CITY OF WASHINGTON SERIAL PUBLICATIONS OF T H E SMITHSONIAN I N S T I T U T I O N The emphasis upon publications as a means of diffusing knowledge was expressed by the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In his formal plan for the Institution, Joseph Henry articulated a program that included the following statement: "It is proposed to publish a series of reports, giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge not strictly professional." This keynote of basic research has been adhered to over the years in the issuance of thousands of titles in serial publications under the Smithsonian imprint, commencing with Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge in 1848 and continuing with the following active series: Smithsonian Annals of Flight Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics Smithsonian Contributions to Botany Smithsonian Contributions to the Earth Sciences Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology In these series, the Institution publishes original articles and monographs dealing with the research and collections of its several museums and offices and of professional colleagues at other institutions of learning. These papers report newly acquired facts, synoptic interpretations of data, or original theory in specialized fields. Each publica- tion is distributed by mailing lists to libraries, laboratories, institutes, and interested specialists-throughout the world. Individual copies may be obtained from the Smith- sonian Institution Press as long as stocks are available. S. DILLON RIPLEY Secretary Smithsonian Institution Official publication date is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1969 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price 30 cents A B S T R A C T Krombein, Karl V. Life History Notes on Some Egyptian Solitary Wasps and Bees and Their As'sociates (Hymenoptera: Aculeata). Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 19:1-18. 1969.?Biological notes are presented on seven Egyptian wasps: Chrysura pustulosa (Abeille), Chrysis episcopalis Spinola, Eumenes mediterraneus Kriechbaumer, Rhynchium oculatum (Fabricius), Telostegus melanurus (Klug), Trypoxylon aegyptium Kohl, and Philanthus triangulum abdelcader (Lepeletier); seven Egyptian bees: Hylaeus adspersa (Alfken), Heriades moricei Friese, Osmia latreillei (Spinola), O. aurantiaca Stanek, Megachile variscopa Perez, M. minutissima Radoszkowski, and M. flavipes (Spinola) ; and on the sarcophagid fly Miltogram- midium chivae Rohdendorf, parasitic on an unknown species of Megachile bee. During the period 1 March-29 May 1965, I par- ticipated in the "Insect Survey of Egypt," a Public Law 480 project of five years' duration carried on cooperatively by entomologists from the Entomology Research Division, United States Department of Agri- culture, Washington, D.C., and from the Department of Plant Protection, Ministry of Agriculture, Dokki, Egypt, U.A.R. This project had as its main purposes the collection of Egyptian insects, their identification subsequently by taxonomists specializing on the Egyptian fauna, and the deposition of sets of identified material in the collections of the United States Na- tional Museum and the Egyptian Ministry of Agri- culture. Necessarily, most of my time in the field was devoted to the collection of wasps, bees, and other insects, an activity largely incompatible with prolonged observa- tion of the activities of nesting wasps and bees. I ob- tained a few scattered notes, however, mostly on the prey of ground-nesting wasps, which are reported below. Also, in several localities I set out wooden trap nests in which several species of solitary wasps and bees nested. These traps are attractive to some species which nest ordinarily in abandoned borings of other insects in wood or in naturally occurring cavities. Such traps have been every effective in North America as a device to investigate the nest architecture and prey or pollen preferences of wood- and twig-nesting wasps and bees, respectively, and to obtain information on the life history of these insects and their associated sym- bionts, parasites, and predators. The traps were not so successful in Egypt because the majority of solitary Karl V. Krombein, Chairman, Department of Entomology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560. wasps and bees are ground-nesters. Eight species which nested in the traps are treated in systematic order in the following account. The traps were fabricated from straight-grained sticks of white pine measuring approximately 165X20X20 mm. A boring about 150 mm long was drilled in each trap; borings of three diameters, 4.8, 6.4, and 12.7 mm, were made in these longer traps. I also used some shorter traps containing a boring 3.2 mm in diameter and about 65-70 mm long. Bundles of traps were made up containing two each of the 4.8- and 6.4-mm borings and one each of the 3.2- and 12.7-mm borings. These bundles were set out in what I hoped were attractive situations in the localities which follow. Ismailia: Stations were in a garden, on wooden posts and beams containing abandoned borings of other insects; the garden was at the edge of town, was en- closed by walls, and was devoted to growing orna- mental flowers. The traps were set out on 3 April; they were inspected and completed nests picked up on 23 April, 23 May, 13 June, and 29 July. Giza (Figures 1-4): Traps were set in two areas? in a garden on the grounds of an orphanage located just north of the Pyramids and on the grounds of the ex- perimental orchard of the Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University. Stations at the orphanage were on wooden trellises, on trunks of Casuarina trees adjacent to a citrus planting, and on branches of citrus trees. At the University the settings were made on wooden trellises, on a Bougainvillea hedge, and on trunks of old trees? all settings were negative at this site. At the orphan- age the traps were set out on 13 March; they were inspected on 25 March, 28 April, 12 and 27 May, 14 June, and 16 July. The traps at the Faculty of Agri- culture were set out 27 March; they were checked on 28 April and 12 May. 1 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOOLOGY mm FIGURES 1-6.?Trap-nest settings at Giza orphanage, 13 March 1965: 1, Station 8 on post sup- porting grape trellis, nesting site of Heriades moricei Friese; 2, Station 12 on wooden shed, nesting site of Megachile minutissima Radoszkowski; 3, Station 13 on Casuarina trunk, nesting site of Heriades and Rhynchium oculatum (Fabricius) ; 4, Station 14 in citrus tree, nesting site of Trypoxylon aegyptium Kohl. Similar stations at Apiculture Section, Dokki, March 14, 1965; 5, Station 17 on roof of Apiculture Section laboratory, nesting site of Osmia aurantiaca Stanek and Chalicodoma ftauipes (Spinola) ; 6, Station 19 in densely shaded summerhouse, nesting site of Megachile variscopa Perez. NUMBER 19 Dokki (Figures 5-6) : The study area was on the grounds of the Apicultural Section of the Ministry of Agriculture in a suburb of Cairo; stations were on the edge of the flat roof of the one-story apicultural labora- tory, on a vine-covered wooden summerhouse, and on a wooden trellis. The traps were set out on 14 March; they were inspected on 25 March, 28 April, 12 and 27 May, 14 June, and 15 July. Kom Oshim: Traps were set in a desert scrub area at the northeast edge of the Fayoum about a kilometer west of the desert road; the dominant shrub was tama- risk; stations above ground were all on tamarisk branches; some bundles were set upright in the ground with the boring entrances flush with the ground level. This was an unprotected area, and all traps were picked up in a few weeks by inquisitive people. The traps were set out on 5 April; they were checked on 18 April and again on 24 April, at which time all were missing. The nests which I obtained from 23 April to 23 May were opened within two or three days, the architectural details were recorded on standardized data sheets, and developmental details were noted at periodic intervals of several days. For an explanation of the study techniques and terms used in describing the nest architecture, the reader is referred to my re- cently published study on trap-nesting wasps and bees occurring in the United States (Krombein, 1967, pp. 8-22). The nests obtained prior to my departure from Egypt were maintained in my hotel room at tempera- tures ranging from 70?-90? F. At the end of May I sealed the boring entrances with aluminum foil and masking tape and sent them to the United States by sea mail, where they arrived about mid-August. After my departure from Egypt, my colleague, A. B. Gurney, kindly checked the traps twice during June and July and sent the completed nests to me by airmail, after sealing them as described above. Most of the nests were then held in my office in Washington, D.C., at a relatively constant temperature of about 70? F. until emergence occurred. A few nests containing diapaus- ing larvae were set outside in cooler temperatures from mid-October to mid-November in an attempt to break the diapause. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.?I am indebted to Dr. Mohammed Mahmoud Ibrahim, director of the Department of Plant Protection and sponsoring scien- tist for the Public Law 480 project, for his interest in facilitating these field studies. Dr. Moustafa Hafez of the same department made arrangements for a number of the field trips. Dr. A. K. Wafa, chairman of the Department of Entomology in the Cairo University Faculty of Agriculture was kind enough to arrange for setting out trap nests on the experimental grounds of that Faculty. Mr. M. Abdel Khalek Moustafa of the Ministry was a cheerful companion on many field trips and facilitated my contacts with his non-English speak- ing countrymen. Dr. M. A. Hafeez of the Ministry gen- erously processed the photographs I made of the trap-nesting stations and of the nests themselves. Mr. A. Alfieri, Secretaire General of the Societe Entomo- logique d'Egypte, drew on his extensive knowledge of Egypt in suggesting several localities for study and also made available his personal synoptic collection which helped identify some of the collected material. Finally, Mr. James K. Hutchins, agricultural attache in the American Embassy, Cairo, was extremely helpful in arranging contacts within the Embassy and in the Ministry and contributed in general to the successful completion of the project. I am further indebted to the following specialists for identification of material reared or obtained from these nests: H. E. Evans, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Pompilidae) ; W. J. Gertsch, American Museum of Natural History, New York City (Araneae) ; P. D. Hurd, Jr., University of California at Berkeley (Megachile) ; J. J. Pasteels, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium (Chalicodoma flavipes); Salah Rashad, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza (pollens); B. B. Rohdendorf, Palaeontological Institute, Moscow (Miltogram- midium) ; E. Stanek, Uhersky Brod, Czechoslovakia (Osmia) ; J. van der Vecht, Rijksmuseum van Na- tuurlijke Historie, Leiden, Netherlands (Eumenidae) ; D. M. Weisman, United States Department of Agri- culture (lepidopterous larvae); S. Zimmermann, Vienna, Austria (Chrysididae). The other identifica- tions are my own. Family CHRYSIDIDAE Chrysura pustulosa (Abeille) FIGURES 15, 19 See notes under Osmia (Chalcosmia) latreillei (Spinola), its putative host. SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOOLOGY Chrysis (Chrysis) episcopalis Spinola Circumstantial evidence suggests that this cuckoo wasp has as one of its hosts the wall bee Chalicodoma (Chalicodoma) siculum (Rossi) (Megachilidae). The most productive collecting spot near Ismailia was a small, sparsely vegetated, sandy area near the base of the Suez Defense Monument about eight kilometers south of the town. There, on 23 April, I collected males and females of C. episcopalis that were flying around and alighting upon concrete blocks which bore mud nests of the Chalicodoma. Family EUMENIDAE Eumenes mediterraneus Kriechbaumer On 23 March I found a small mud nest (No. 32365 A) of this wasp about a meter above the ground on a twig of a tamarisk shrub in a desert scrub area at Kom Oshim. The nest was flattened spheroidal in shape, about 4 mm wide, 5 mm long, and 3.3 mm high. It did not have a pronounced jug-shaped neck as in the nests of some other Eumenes species. Presumably the nest was completed several days before my discovery. A male wasp emerged about 17 April or a day or two earlier while I was absent on a field trip. I found it dead but still limp in the rearing tin on 19 April. Deleurance (1946, pp. 90-96), under the name Eumenes pomiformis var. mediterranea, published some biological notes on this species made at Nice, France, and summarized previous observations on the nesting habits of the species. He noted that this Eumenes built its nest on herbaceous stems or slender branches, beneath leaves, on walls, and in burrows of Anthophora bees. Construction of the delicate mud nest required 1 / 2 -2 hours. In one case the wasp built the nest and laid an egg in it on 7 July, the egg hatched on the 9th, the wasp placed paralyzed green caterpillars in the nest on the 9th, 10th, and 11th, and sealed the nest on the last date. The wasp larva completed feeding on the stored caterpillars on the 13th. The mother wasp commenced a second nest on the 12th. This instance of progressive provisioning, un- usual for an eumenid wasp, was repeated later by an- other specimen of mediterraneus, so it appears to be a fixed habit of this species. Consolidated prey records attributed to mediter- raneus are as follows: OECOPHORIDAE: Agonopteryx heracliana (Linnaeus) [re- corded as Depressaria applana Fabricius]. YPONOMEUTIDAE: Plutella xylostella (Linnaeus) [recorded as cruciferarum Zeller]. PHALONHDAE: Eupoecilia angustana (Hiibner) [recorded as Cochylis cruentana Froelich], C. hybridella (Hiibner). PYRALIDAE: Evergestis extimalis (Scopoli) [recorded in Pionea], Pyrausta sanguinalis (Linnaeus), Homoesoma nimbellum (Duponchel). PTEROPHORIDAE: Platyptilia acanthodactyla (Hiibner) [re- corded in Amblyptilia], Oxyptilus tristis Zeller, Pterophorus monodactylus (Linnaeus), Mimeseoptilus seronitus Zeller. GEOMETRIDAE: Lobophora halterata (Hufnagel), Cidaria juniprata (Linnaeus) [recorded in Thera\, C. bifasciata ab. unifasciata (Haworth), Eupithecia oxycedrata Ram- bur, E. linariata (Fabricius), Gymnoscelis pumilata (Hiibner) [recorded in Eupithecia], Lythria purpurata (Linnaeus), Ligydia adustata (Denis & Schiffermiiller). NOCTUIDAE: Heliothis armigera (Hiibner),//. dipsacea (Lin- naeus). Deleurance cites Chretien as finding 3-38 cater- pillars per cell and Fabre 14-16. The wasp larva spins a cocoon and voids its accumulated fecal wastes in about six days. During the summer pupation occurs about a week later. The entire life cycle in summer, egg to adult, requires 30-40 days. Parasites of mediterraneus were listed as follows: CHRYSIDIDAE: Holopyga rosea (Rossi) and H. purpurascens (Dahlbom) [both of these listed in Hedychrum], Chrysis cyanopyga Dahlbom, C. ignita (Linnaeus). EULOPHIDAE: Melittobia acasta (Walker) [recorded as audouini]. ENCYRTIDAE: Paralitomastix varicornis (Nees) [recorded in Encyrtus]. ICHNEUMONIDAE: Mesostenus species, Bathyplectes exiguus (Gravenhorst) [recorded as Canidia pusilla Holmgren, a synonym], Mesoleius abbreviatus Brischke [recorded as Mesolephus ( ! ) ] . BOMBYLIIDAE: Toxophora maculata (Rossi). It should be noted that some of these parasite records are unquestionably erroneous, being based pre- sumably either on misidentifications, on specimens reared from prey of the wasp, or on other insects occurring by chance in the wasp nests. Thus, Meso- stenus and Paralitomastix parasitize lepidopterous larvae; this species of Bathyplectes has as its host species of the weevil genus Hyper a; and the species of Mesoleius parasitize sawfly larvae. Rhynchium oculatum (Fabricius) FIGURES 7-9 This large eumenid wasp occupied six 12.7-mm bor- ings, one each from four different settings (nest Nos. NUMBER 19 328, 329, 330, 333) on wooden posts in a garden in Ismailia and one each from settings on a wooden trellis (No. 313) and on a Casuarina trunk (No. 316) in a garden area in Giza. In addition the same wasp probably used two 6.4-mm borings (Nos. 226, 227) from the Casuarina trunk station in Giza; occupants of these nests died as small larvae. The Ismailia nests were stored and completed during the period 23 May to 13 June. The nests from the Casuarina trunk setting in Giza were stored and com- pleted during the period 25 March-28 April. The nest from the trellis in Giza was stored and completed be- tween 28 April and 12 May. NEST ARCHITECTURE.?In one each of the 6.4- and 12.7-mm borings at Giza, the mother wasp placed a little mud in the inner end of the boring before bringing in prey. In the other nests the wasps placed the para- lyzed caterpillars at the inner end without first coating it with mud. The six 12.7-mm nests each contained 1-4 provi- sioned cells (mean 2.5); in length these cells ranged from 18-43 mm (mean 27). Three cells from which females were reared were 24-37 mm long (mean 29), and five male cells were 23-29 mm (mean 26); prog- eny was not reared from the other seven cells. Each of the 6.4-mm nests had a single provisioned cell 35 and 39 mm long respectively. Empty intercalary cells were lacking in both 6.4-mm nests and in three 12.7-mm nests; they were present in two of the 12.7-mm nests from Ismailia and in one of the 12.7-mm nests from Giza. In the latter nest there were intercalary cells 13 and 22 mm long between stored cells 2 and 3 and between stored cell 3 and the vestibular cell. In a 4-celled nest from Ismailia there was one intercalary cell 9 mm long between stored cells 2 and 3; the other 2-celled nest (No. 333) had two in- tercalary cells 22 and 14 mm long between stored cells 1 and 2. All nests had an empty vestibular cell except one nest from Giza. In the two 6.4-mm nests these cells were 110 mm long; one was divided into two sections by a transverse mud partition. Five vestibular cells in 12.7-mm borings were 13-80 mm long (mean 49) ; one was divided into two sections by a transverse mud par- tition. The one nest from Giza which lacked the ves- tibular cell may have been abnormal; it had only a single stored cell 30 mm long which was sealed by a much thicker partition (4-9 mm) than normal. The partitions closing the cells and the plug at the nest entrance were made from mud except in the one abnormal (?) nest from Giza which was sealed by a plug made from agglutinated sand. The partitions in 6.4-mm nests were 1.5-3 mm, and the closing plugs were 4-5 mm thick. The partitions closing stored cells in 12.7-mm nests were quite thin in the middle, about 1 mm, but 3-8 mm thick at the edges. The partitions closing empty intercalary cells were slightly thicker than those closing stored cells. The closing plugs in 12.7-mm nests were 2-13 mm thick (mean 7). PREY.?Rhynchium oculatum stored a large number of rather small caterpillars per cell or a smaller number of larger caterpillars. When I opened nest 313 from Giza, I found a prepupa of oculatum and 103 speci- mens of a species of Gelechiidae which had not been eaten by the wasp larva. Ninety-nine of the specimens of prey were larvae and four were partially transformed to the pupal stage; the larvae were shriveled and about 5 mm long. Nest 328 from Ismailia contained two dead adult oculatum, and I recovered the head capsule of a small specimen of Pyraloidea from one of the cells. Nests 329, 330, and 333 from Ismailia were stored with caterpillars of a species of Amphipyrinae (Noctu- idae). Fourteen larvae from 333 were 10-15 mm long. Fourteen larvae or fragments thereof were recovered from nest 330, and six from nest 329. Development of the wasps in all nests of oculatum had progressed so far by the time I opened the nests that it was not possible to ascertain the original number of caterpillars provided in each cell. LIFE HISTORY.?The empty egg shell in one nest was 3 mm long; it was attached by a delicate filament at a point 3 mm from the inner end and on the upper side of the boring. The small wasp larvae in the 6.4-mm nests and in one of the 12.7-mm nests from Giza were dead when I opened these three nests on 28 April, probably because of the high temperatures during that period. This sug- gests that oculatum normally nests in situations offer- ing greater protection from ambient temperatures than afforded by the relatively thin-walled wooden traps. The other 1-celled nest (No. 313) from Giza con- tained a creamy, leathery skinned prepupa 14 mm long on 12 May; this nest was provisioned some time after 28 April, probably early in May. There was a pale, pink-eyed pupa in this cell on 17 May, so pupation must have occurred about the 15th. Adult eclosion had not occurred by 26 May, and the nearly fully col- SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOOLOGY fr ? vc > ?^ IC 7 FIGURES 7-9.?Nests of Rhynchium oculatum (Fabricius) in 12.7-mm borings: 7, nest 333, Ismailia, 19 August 1965 (note two empty intercalary cells [ic] between stored cells 1 and 2, empty vestibular cell [vc] and thick closing plug [p]; 8, nest 328, Ismailia, 19 August 1965 (note two dead pupae in cells 1[9] and 2[$ ], absence of empty intercalary cells between the stored cells, and division of empty vestibular cell into two sections by a cross partition) ; 9, nest 313, Giza, 12 May 1965, resting male larva in cell 1 (note mud at inner [right] end of cell and thick len- ticular mud partition sealing the cell). NUMBER 19 ored pupa was dead the next time I examined the nest on 16 August. The four nests from Ismailia were stored during the period 23 May to 13 June. I opened two of them on 29 July and found that the adult occupants had died in the cells before that date. Dead adults were found in their cells in the other two nests when I opened them on 19 August. Three of the Ismailia nests con- tained both sexes; females were in the innermost, and males in the outermost cells. The cocoon of this wasp is evanescent or entirely lacking. In the Ismailia nests the larvae in one nest just varnished over the inner wall of the mud partition capping the cells; in two nests the larvae silked over these closing partitions and about 2-3 mm of the cell walls adjacent to the partitions. Lichtenstein (1869) published the first biological note on this species in southern France. He stated that it nested in rose canes in cavities as short as two to three inches in length. Each cell was provisioned with 8-12 caterpillars of the noctuid moth Plusia gamma (Linnaeus). A female wasp might provision 15-20 cells during her lifetime, storing 150-200 caterpillars in these cells. There was only one generation a year, the immature wasp remaining as a resting larva in the cell during the winter and pupating in April. Grandi (1961, pp. 47-52, figs. 28-32) summarized his earlier observations on this wasp in Italy. At Ponte- corvo he found four nests in dry canes of Arundo donax, arranged vertically to form a wall of a shed for drying tobacco leaves. At the bottom of each nest the wasp coated the whole diaphragm of the internode with a thin layer of mud or made a mud plug 4-5 mm thick if the diaphragm was perforated or broken. A nest in a cane with a calibre of 7 mm had a single stored cell 25 mm long; three nests in canes having a calibre 10-11 mm had 11 stored cells 14-30 mm long (mean 22). Two of the latter nests were 143 and 161 mm long, had five and four stored cells respectively, and vestibular cells of 13 and 26 mm length respectively. One of these nests had a closing plug of mud 14 mm thick. The cells were stored with light green caterpillars of a pyralid moth 25-27 mm long. The wasp egg was 4.3 mm long and was suspended from the cell wall by a filament 2 mm long. Grandi reared the hypermetamorphic rhi- piphorid beetle Macrosiagon fcrrugincum flabellatum (Fabricius) from resting larvae of the wasp. Later, at Bologna, he found oculatum preying on larvae of the pyralid moth Lypotigris ruralis (Scopoli). Family POMPILIDAE Telostegus melanurus (Klug) I captured a female spider wasp (No. 51765 B) 10 mm long at 1420 hours on 17 May at Dahshur. She was running rapidly forward over the sand, with her wings flicking, and carrying beneath her a paralyzed green oxyopid spider, Peucetia viridis Blackwall, 9 mm long. Family SPHECIDAE Trypoxylon aegyptium Kohl This slender black sphecid wasp nested in two of the 3.2-mm borings. One (No. 27) was in a bundle of traps suspended from a branch of an orange tree in Giza. The other (No. 53) was from a setting on a wooden post in a garden at Ismailia. Both borings were empty when I inspected them on 27 and 23 May respectively; the nests were completed between those dates and 13-14 June when they were picked up by A. B. Gurney. NEST ARCHITECTURE.?Both females stored spiders at the inner end of the boring without first coating the inner end with mud. The nest from Giza had a stored cell 12 mm long at the inner end, an empty intercalary cell 4 mm long, a second stored cell 12 mm long, and another empty intercalary cell 5 mm long. The remaining 38 mm of the boring contained a series of four vestibular cells 8, 7, 6, and 17 mm long. The cell partitions were J/2-34 m r f i thick, and the closing plug at the nest en- trance was 2 mm thick; both were made of mud. The Ismailia nest had a stored cell 19 mm long at the inner end, an empty intercalary cell 5 mm long divided into two sections by a thin mud partition, and a second stored cell 20 mm long. There was an empty vestibular cell 9 mm long beyond the second stored cell. The cell partitions and closing plug were made of mud; the par- titions were y%?\ mm and the closing plug 2 mm thick. PREY.?A desiccated spider in the nest from Ismailia was identified by W. J. Gertsch as a female theridiid belonging to the genus Theridion. Trypoxylon carina- tum Say from North America, which belongs to the same species group as aegyptium, preys on Theridion lyricum Walckenaer (Krombein, 1967, p. 228). It is quite likely that both wasps prey on a variety of snare- building spiders belonging to several families. LIFE HISTORY.?I opened the Giza nest on 19 July and found a dead broken male inside the boring. The 333-345 O - 69 - 2 8 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOOLOGY other occupant had escaped from the nest before it was sealed for shipment on 14 June. Data from this nest indicate a maximum developmental period, egg to adult, of about 2 ^ weeks. The North American carina- tum, another member of the Scutatum Group to which aegyptium also belongs, requires four weeks from egg to adult. The Ismailia nest was opened on 19 August. I found a dead female and a dead male in the boring, but I was unable to ascertain from which cell either had come. The cocoons in this nest were 8-9 mm long, fusi- form in shape, and were spun from opaque, delicate white silk. LIFE HISTORY.?No details are available on the early stages. When I opened the Ismailia nest on 19 August, it contained eight dead, dry bees, four females, and four males. The sequence of sexes in the cells could not be determined, because the adults moved around after eclosion. If the Giza nests are also those of adspersa, the life cycle, egg to adult, must be of rather short duration. In North America modestus Say has only a single gen- eration annually (Krombein, 1967, pp. 262-264) ; however, I reported a larval feeding period of two weeks and a period of 12-13 days from pupation to adult emergence. Philanthus triangulum abdelcader Lepeletier This ground-nesting sphecid wasp preys on honey- bees. At Dahshur on 17 May at 1400 hours I captured a female (No. 51765 A) 15 mm long, resting on a grass stem. She was clutching a paralyzed worker honeybee 11 mm long. In his original description of this taxon, Lepeletier (1845, p. 34) said that his son had observed it provi- sioning its nest in Algeria with honeybees. Family COLLETIDAE Hylaeus (Spatulariella) adspersa (Alfken) I obtained one nest (No. 57) of this small colletid bee in a 3.2-mm boring from a setting on a wooden post in a garden at Ismailia. The nest was stored and completed during the period 23 May to 13 June. I got two additional nests (Nos. 29, 30) of a species of Hytaeus in 3.2-mm borings from a setting on the trunk of a Casuarina tree in a garden at Giza. Ap- parently these nests were completed early in the period 14 June-16 July, because the occupants transformed to adults and left the nest by the later date. The archi- tecture definitely proves these to have been Hytaeus nests, but nests of species of this genus are not specifi- cally diagnostic. NEST ARCHITECTURE.?The cell walls and partitions were made of an extremely thin, very delicate, trans- parent film formed from the dried salivary secretions of the mother bee. The Ismailia nest had eight stored cells, 4, 7. 7, 5, 6, 7, 6, and 4 mm long, respectively, begin- ning with the innermost. There was also an empty vestibular cell 8 mm long sealed by a very thin partition of the salivary secretion. Family MEGACHILIDAE Heriades moricei Friese I obtained four nests of moricei: one (No. 136) in a 4.8-mm boring from a setting on a vine-covered summer house in Dokki, one (No. 114) in a 4.8-mm boring from a setting on a wooden trellis in a garden at Giza, and two (Nos. 25, 125) in 3.2- and 4.8-mm borings from a setting on a Casuarina trunk in a garden at Giza. NEST ARCHITECTURE.?The single nest in a 3.2-mm boring had an empty space 13 mm long at the inner end, capped by a resin partition 1 mm thick. Then there were four male cells 8, 8, 7, and 14 mm long; the latter cell was abnormally long because it was capped by a closing plug, 7 mm thick, of resin with tiny inter- mixed pebbles. The cell partitions capping the first three cells were of resin and about l/