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Paleontologists have actually explained a brand-new types of the extant bee genus Leioproctus from a fossil specimen discovered in southern New Zealand.
Leioproctus barrydonovanihabitus of part. Scale bar– 1 mm. Image credit: M.S. Engel & U. Kaulfuss, doi: 10.5252/ zoosystema2025v47a3.
Called Leioproctus barrydonovanithe brand-new types lived throughout the Middle Miocene date, some 14.6 million years earlier.
The ancient bug comes from Leioproctusa big genus within the plasterer bee household Colletidae.
Extant Leioproctus types are little, black, hairy bees in between 4 and 16 mm in length.
They are discovered in Australasia and South America, and consist of the most typical native bees in New Zealand.
“The biota of New Zealand is a mosaic of ancient family trees sprinkled amongst selections of relative newbies that have actually diversified given that the Oligocene-Miocene,”stated Dr. Michael Engel from the American Museum of Natural History and Dr. Uwe Kaulfuss from the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.
“Indeed, in numerous aspects the animals is common of an island biota, reflective of family trees distributing to the landmass at different times because its separation from Gondwana c. 80 million years earlier and after that speciating.”
“Some insect family trees have actually plainly flourished and progressed special functions within New Zealand, however lots of are notably and enigmatically depauperate provided the intricacy and scale of the landscape, apparently showing their late arrival to the islands,” they included.
“Indeed, some popular and intricate biological interactions are inadequately represented within the modern-day New Zealand animals such as specialized pest pollinators, which are couple of in New Zealand and generalist flies are the dominant pollinators.”
“In truth, although bees are the preeminent pollinators worldwide, their variety in New Zealand is meagre, with just 42 types of which a simple 28 are endemic.”
“This has actually resulted in an understanding that bees are relative beginners to New Zealand and in the lack of any fossil record it has actually been challenging to identify the antiquity of the melittofauna.”
Leioproctus barrydonovanihabitus of equivalent. Scale bar– 1 mm. Image credit: M.S. Engel & U. Kaulfuss, doi: 10.5252/ zoosystema2025v47a3.
Leioproctus barrydonovani is represented by an impression of an almost total bee in dorsal view.
The specimen(overall length of the body is 6.4 mm )was recuperated from the Middle Miocene deposits of the Hindon Maar in Otago, southern New Zealand.
“The single specimen is a compressed, articulated fossil bee maintained as part and equivalent in dark gray natural mudstone,” the paleontologists stated.
The existence of Leioproctus barrydonovani in the Middle Miocene animals of New Zealand postures some intriguing concepts concerning the bee animals of these islands.
“If the genus had actually attacked New Zealand before 14.6 million years earlier, then it ought to have sufficed time for the group to have more thoroughly varied or to establish flower expertises with the endemic plants,” the scientists stated.
“The truth is, nevertheless, that there are simply 18 types of endemic Leioproctussuggesting that either there was a diversity that was consequently winnowed significantly through termination and driven by elements unidentified, that some intricate biotic procedures or interactions avoided the family tree from more substantial speciation, or that the modern-day Leioproctus of New Zealand are unassociated to the fossil, a minimum of subgenerically, and represent several later reintroductions in between the mid-Miocene and Pleistocene.”
“In reality, there are presently no information to suggest that the 3 groups of Leioproctus in New Zealand form a monophyletic group, and they themselves might represent numerous, more youthful intrusions of the islands.”
“If the fossil is agent of an early intrusion of Leioproctus into New Zealand throughout or before the Middle Miocene, then one would assume that a higher number of types would have established throughout the complex landscape and environments of the islands.”
Leioproctus barrydonovani lived in broadleaf forests and might have gone to flowers of the genus Pseudopanaxtoday typical throughout New Zealand.
“At least one extant types, Leioproctus pangois understood to gather pollen from flowers of Pseudopanaxa genus of little trees and shrubs typical throughout New Zealand,” the researchers stated.
“Among 48 fossilized flowers gathered at the Hindon Maar Complex all however 2 are Araliaceae flowers of an undescribed types of Pseudopanax“
“Although there is no direct proof of the host plant(s) of Leioproctus barrydonovani (no pollen was discovered connected to the fossil), the abundance of flowers of Pseudopanax in the very same deposit may show that this Miocene bee types went to Pseudopanax sp., most likely to name a few plants.”
“Given the great information of conservation, the prospective to recuperate in situ pollen is excellent need to extra and more total bees be discovered in future excavations.”
“Direct proof of such flower associations has actually been tape-recorded from other essential Lagerstätten, and the Hindon Maar Complex and close-by Foulden Maar have substantial capacity for peeks into insect-plant interactions throughout the Miocene of Zealandia.”
The discovery of Leioproctus barrydonovani is reported in a paper in the journal Zoosystema
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M.S. Engel & & U. Kaulfuss. 2025. A bee from the middle Miocene Hindon Maar of southern New Zealand (Hymenoptera, Colletidae). Zoosystema 47 (3 ): 43-49; doi: 10.5252/ zoosystema2025v47a3
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