Abstract
The present work attempts to establish probable evolutionary trends and relationships among the various groups of stingless bees, and in doing so to provide a new classification for the subfamily Meliponinae.
This study concludes that the stingless bees had their center of origin and dispersion in Africa. This is based on the wide acceptance of continental drift, the primitiveness of several African Meliponinae, and the discovery of a European stingless bee fossil from the late Eocene, which shows that the Meliponinae were not restricted to America at that time.
Parallel evolution seems to have taken place between the African genera and several groups of stingless bees from other continents. For instance, resemblances between Cleptotrigona and Lestrimelitta; between Dactylurina and Tetragona; between Meliponula and Melipona; and between Meliplebeia and Plebeia, result from parallelisms or convergences.
The new classification here presented demostrates and defends the recognition of certain groups as genera and subgenera, and the relegation of other names to synonymy.
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