The First Fossil Bee from Africa: The Stingless Bee Genus Liotrigona in Ethiopian Miocene Amber (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

A new fossil bee species, Liotrigona (Tapheiotrigona) aethiopica Engel, new subgenus and species, was described and figured from a worker preserved in Miocene amber from Ethiopia. The species represents the first fossil bee from Africa, predating the many subfossil occurrences otherwise known from Holocene copal and Defaunation resins. The new species is distinguished from its congeners and placed in a new subgenus based on differences in malar space length, wing venation, keirotrichia of the metatibia, and structure of the mesoscutellum and propodeum.