Fossil taxa
Female of Osmia (Osmia) bicornis bicornis (Linnaeus, 1758) collecting moist soil for the construction of the brood cells. Foto N. Vereecken.
Listed below are three extinct osmiine taxa described from their fossilized remains in the Palaearctic region. Further compression fossils of putative Osmiini taxa have been described from Florissant, Colorado, USA (Eocene-Oligocene) (see Zeuner and Manning, 1976 and Engel and Perkovsky, 2006 for reviews). The Palaearctic Baltic amber fossils Ctenoplectrella Cockerell, Glaesosmia Engel, Friccomelissa Wedmann, Wappler & Engel and Glyptapis Cockerell described in detail by Engel (2001) and Wedmann, Wappler & Engel (2009) are attributed to the extinct basal Megachilinae tribes Ctenoplectrellini Engel and Glyptapini Cockerell (Engel and Perkovsky, 2006; Gonzalez et al., 2012) even though they had been classified as subtribes (Ctenoplectrellina, Glyptapina) within the tribe Osmiini before (Engel, 2001).
† Osmia antiqua Heer, 1849
1849 † Osmia antiqua Heer, Die Insektenfauna der Tertiärgebilde von Oeningen und von Radoboj in Croatien, vol. 2, p. 95. Compression fossil. Upper Miocene. Type material: Holotype Oe. 91, Inv. 1272, “Oeningen” [Germany], SMNK (Karlsruhe).
† Osmia carbonum Heyden, 1862
1862 † Osmia carbonum Heyden, Palaeontographica, 10: 75. Compression fossil. Upper Oligocene. Type material: Holotype 58779, “Rott im Siebengebirge” [Germany], BMNH (London); paratype 58768.
† Osmia nigra Zeuner & Manning, 1976
1976 † Osmia nigra Zeuner & Manning, Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Geology, 27: 185. Compression fossil. Upper Miocene. Type material: Holotype, Pl. I. 719, “Oeningen” [Germany], ETHZ (Zürich); paratype, Pl. I. 685.