34
 8). The detection of these alleles suggests that greater variation exists in the

 parent South African population than has been revealed in this study.

 Alleles were identified in Mexico (M510/D304) and Honduras

 (M202/D414, and M510/D302) that were, according to the assignment of

 variants to groups on the basis of fragment pattern and distribution, composed

 of both European and African variants. The distributions determined in this

 study may not be absolute, given the number of variants and alleles found, the

 size of each sample, and the world-wide, human-assisted redistribution of bees.

 Investigation with additional samples will likely be needed for a thorough

 classification of variants at this highly polymorphic locus. However, alleles

 composed of African and European variants may be the result of recombination

 within the 178 locus.

 Greater allele diversity has been detected in South African compared to

USA honey bees at another genomic locus (Hall 1992b). At least 14 variants

were detected in South African bees, two of which were detected in European

and USA bees. In Honduras nine variants were detected: the two common to

European and USA samples, as well as seven characteristic of South African

bees. A larger number of mtDNA size classes have been found in African bees

than in bees of European ancestry (Hall & Smith 1991; Smith et. al. 1991).

Greater diversity has been revealed in tropical relative to temperate populations

of Drosophila melanogaster (David & Capy 1988; Hale & Singh 1987),

Drosophila simulans (Hyytia et al. 1985), Ceratitis capitata (Gasperi et al.