Abstract. Males of sibling orchid bees Euglossa viridissima and Euglossa dilemma are morphologically cryptic, except for the number and shape of mandibular teeth. An alternative morph of E. viridissima has a third tooth similar to males of E. dilemma. We used this model system to evaluate the potential of wing morphometrics for the resolution of these groups. We found differences in the size characters of forewings of E. viridissima and E. dilemma albeit with substantial overlapping amongst them. However, geometric morphometrics of forewing vein intersections separated both species and, to a lesser extent, morphotypes. A discriminant analysis of the shape of the radial cell showed separation between all three groups, too, albeit with higher misclassification between E. viridissima and E. dilemma. We show that sibling cryptic species and morphotypes can be identified by geometric morphometrics, supporting its application with other methods as powerful aids to infrageneric taxonomy in bees.
Keywords: orchid bee cryptic species morphotypes geometric morphometrics forewing
