Meganomiinae is a subfamily of
melittid bees, with 10 species in four genera, found only in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, primarily in
xeric
Deserts and xeric shrublands are a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Deserts and xeric (ancient Greek xērós, “dry") shrublands form the largest terrestrial biome, covering 19% of Earth's land surface area. Ecoregions in this h ...
habitats, with the distributional limits in
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
and
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
.
They are rather different in appearance from the other groups of past/present melittids, being large bees (10–22 mm), mostly black with strong yellow markings, resembling
anthidiine megachilids.
Males of this subfamily are known to have hidden sterna.
Taxonomy
Initial molecular work suggested that the family Melittidae was
paraphyletic, and that its subfamilies (including Meganomiinae) should therefore be elevated to family status. However, these studies included very few melittids, due to their rarity. A 2013 investigation included a greater number of melittid bees and concluded that the family was probably monophyletic, thus supporting Meganomiinae as a subfamily of Melittidae.
References
Melittidae
Bee subfamilies
{{Bee-stub