From Cabinet to Catalogue: The Palaearctic bee (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Anthophila) collection of the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

The Mediterranean Basin, characterised by temperate rainy winters and hot dry summers, represents a notable hotspot for bee species richness. However, research on the bee fauna across this region remains uneven, with significant knowledge gaps in countries like Portugal. As human-driven climate change continues to cause a dramatic decline on insect species, museum records become indispensable for assessing changes in species distributions over time and to preserve material evidence about species for future generations. We provide data on 5,295 bee records with Palaearctic distribution, collected from the 1920s to the year 2025. The collection, hosted in the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência (MNHNC), Universidade de Lisboa (UL), encompasses 425 species and 49 genera. The majority of the records originate from Portugal, including a newly-documented species for the country, Nomada chrysopyga Morawitz, 1871, bringing the total number of bee species in mainland Portugal to 737. Type material held in the collection is documented and photographed here, alongside a record of bee types destroyed in the 1978 fire.