Lasioglossum ankoui n. sp. (Hymenoptera: Halictidae), a new species described from France

Summary. Thanks to renewed interest in wild bees in metropolitan France, knowledge of their diversity has steadily increased over the past 20 years. Among the groups of particular concern is the taxonomically complex and highly diverse genus Lasioglossum Curtis, 1833. Building on the most recent national checklist and newly collected material, we describe Lasioglossum ankoui Flaminio & Pauly, n. sp., discovered in Loire-Atlantique and Charente-Maritime, and possibly endemic to metropolitan France (in the present work, to be intended as continental France excluding Corsica and overseas territories). Its distinctiveness is demonstrated through morphological comparisons with related species and confirmed by DNA barcoding. This discovery further refines the taxonomy of Lasioglossum and its faunistic inventory at the national and western Palaearctic scale. It underlines the importance of pursuing field surveys and taxonomic revisions.