Bombus miniatus Bingham
flavothoracicus Bingham, 1897:552, examined, not of Hoffer, 1889:49 (= B. campestris (Panzer))
miniatus Bingham, 1897:553, examined
eurythorax Wang, 1982:435, examined
stenothorax Wang, 1982:439, examined

TAXONOMIC STATUS: B. miniatus has been considered conspecific with B. pyrosoma, B. formosellus and B. friseanus (Williams, 1991 [pdf]).

Evidence of intermediates between B. miniatus and B. friseanus is not strong, but perhaps not least because so little material is available from where these taxa occur in close proximity in the eastern Himalaya. The few workers and males from this area that I have seen are difficult to assign to either taxon with any confidence, although the queens are closer to the colour pattern of B. miniatus (Williams, 1991 [pdf]). From COI barcodes, these taxa appear to remain discrete and are likely to be separate species. More evidence is awaited.

B. eurythorax and B. stenothorax are closely similar in morphology and colour pattern to B. miniatus. I know of no reason why these nominal taxa should not be considered conspecific.

NOMENCLATURE: With Psithyrus regarded as being a subgenus of the genus Bombus, B. flavothoracicus Bingham (1897) becomes a junior secondary homonym in Bombus of Psithyrus campestris var. flavothoracicus Hoffer (1889) (deemed to be subspecific, see ICZN, 1999: Article 45.6), and therefore B. flavothoracicus Bingham is invalid (ICZN, 1999: Article 57).

For this species, the oldest available name is B. miniatus, which becomes the valid name. The only subsequent publications of which I am aware that use the name B. flavothoracicus for this taxon as a species are by Tkalcu (1974b), Wang (1982) and Macior (1990), so this change of valid name is not a serious disruption of common usage.

DISTRIBUTION: Oriental Region.