“Colombia's First Bee Checklist Documents 738 Species, Reveals 246 New Records” — what this page in the network covers. A research team led by Penn State professor Margarita López-Uribe and doctoral student Victor González has compiled the first comprehensive checklist of bee species in Colombia, documenting 738 species—including 246 newly recorded for the country. Published in the journal Zootaxa, the checklist is the first of its kind for any nation in the Western Hemisphere, providing a critical baseline for biodiversity monitoring and conservation.
Colombia, one of the world's most biodiverse countries, has long lacked a complete inventory of its native bees, hindering efforts to protect pollinators essential to agriculture and ecosystems. The new checklist consolidates over a century of scattered records and recent field surveys, revealing that Colombia hosts nearly 10% of the world's known bee species. The full version stays on the original page, which this listing opens directly.