ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to evaluate the status of systematics of Africanized bees and of several methods of identification based on the phenotype. Africanized bees resemble their African parents more than their European parents in mitochondrial DNA, morphometry, hemolymph proteins, biochemistry of cuticular hydrocarbons, and behavioral characteristics. When Africanized and European bees are compared on the basis of single characters, the variation in characters usually overlaps between the groups. Africanized bees, however, differ from African bees and are situated in the graph between African and European bees in a position that could indicate some hybridization has taken place or a "founder effect" has occurred. Multivariate discriminant analysis has features that are useful in identifying Africanized bees. When the same groups are compared in a discriminant analysis of many characters, the combination of characters often gives a clear separation of the groups.
