Osmia labialis and Osmia melanogaster
The species status of Osmia (Helicosmia) labialis Pérez, 1879 is disputed. Warncke (1986) synonymized it with Osmia melanogaster Spinola, 1808, while other authors considered it as a valid species different from O. melanogaster (Tkalcu, 1975c; Rasmont et al., 1995; Amiet et al., 2004). In a sample of bees from France, two specimens of Helicosmia were recently found that had been collected at the same day and exactly the same location. One of these specimens showed all characters typical of O. labialis as given by Tkalcu (1975c), the other specimen was a typical O. melanogaster. The syntopic occurrence indicates that O. labialis indeed warrants the status of a valid species.