melittid

English

Melitta nigricans

Noun

melittid (plural melittids)

1. (zoology) Any bee of the family Melittidae.
   • 1992, David W. Roubik, editor, Ecology and Natural History of Tropical Bees, page 45:

     Regarding the transport sites, apids, melittids, ctenoplectrids, and megachilids all show little variation whereas the other bee families display wide variation.

   • 2000, Charles Duncan Michener, The Bees of the World, volume 1, page 95:

     In further support of the antiquity of this clade is the widely disjunct distribution of some of its basal members among the dasypodaine melittids, as indicated in Sections 26 and 68 and Michener (1981a).

   • 2010, Geoff Williams, Paul Adam, The Flowering of Australia's Rainforests: A Plant and Pollination Miscellany, page 105:

     The relatively good fossil representation of melittids and their long-tongued associates has been argued to be a reflection of a bias in favour of resin-collecting bees.