Common fur bee
| Common fur bee | ||||||||||||
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Common fur bee ( Anthophora plumipes ), male |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Anthophora plumipes | ||||||||||||
| ( Pallas , 1772) |
The common fur bee ( Anthophora plumipes ) is a solitary bee species .
features
The hairy, compact appearance of the common fur bee is reminiscent of small bumblebees, such as B. Bumblebees . It is about 15 mm tall. The females of the common fur bee come in three color variants. There are brown, gray and black specimens. The males are generally gray in color and have light markings on the front of the head. In addition, the males on the middle pair of legs have the characteristic, eponymous long hair on their feet (plumipes). The female has a rust-red collecting brush on her hind legs.
Way of life
The animals fly early in the year (March to June). They are polylectic - so they feed on many different types of plants. Particularly popular are z. B. dead nettles or lung herbs .
The common fur bees stand out due to their fast flight behavior, which means that, with a little practice in the field, they can be distinguished from bumblebees at a great distance.
The females like to build their brood cells in steep walls made of clay or loess. Aggregations with several hundred nests can form at suitable points. A pulp of nectar and pollen, which is mostly liquid on the surface, is put into the cells and an egg is laid. Several brood cells can also be created in one nest. The larvae develop into adults in summer, which then rest in their brood cells until the next spring.
If you build walls out of clay to offer these animals breeding opportunities and to be able to observe them better, there is a good chance that the common fur bee will nestle there.
Parasites
The animals are parasitized by the common mourning bee. There is also the narrow-winged fur bee oil beetle ( Sitaris muralis ), which specializes in fur bees.
Taxonomy
In older works the species is listed under the name Anthophora acervorum ( Linnaeus , 1758). Linné's description of this species in the Systema naturae , however, does not allow a clear assignment, but possibly refers to the earthwork bumblebee ( Bombus subterraneus ). A corresponding assumption was made by Kirby in 1802, but for a long time Fabricius followed the earlier assessment that Apis acervorum describes a fur bee. In the 1990s, the opinion prevailed to treat A. acervorum as a nomen dubium and to use the next available name Anthophora plumipes for the most common native fur bee .
Picture gallery
Male on lungwort
Anthophora plumipes
Male on fingered larkspur
Female on gold deadnettle
literature
- M. Schwarz, F. Gusenleitner, P. Westrich, HH Dathe (1996): Catalog of the bees of Austria, Germany and Switzerland - Entomofauna, Supplement 8, ISSN 0250-4413 .
