Macropis europaea
| Western femoral bee | ||||||||||||
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European thighbee ( Macropis europaea ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Macropis europaea | ||||||||||||
| Warncke , 1973 |
Macropis europaea is a bee from the family of Melittidae . The species was named Wild Bee of the Year in2020.
features
The bees have a body length of 8 to 9 millimeters (females) or 8 millimeters (males). The females are black. They are loosely yellow-brown on the head and thorax , and blackish hairy on the mesonotum . The first two tergites are hairless and shiny, the third and fourth tergites have white hair ties, the first of which is interrupted in the middle. The end fringe is black in the middle and white on the sides. The splint brush (Scopa) is white. The heel links (metatarsi) are black inside and out. The males have a black body, their face is marked yellow. The head and thorax are hairy yellow-gray. The third tergite has whitish hair spots at the end, the fourth and fifth tergite have bandages. The thighs ( femora ) and splints ( tibia ) of the hind legs are strongly thickened, therefore also called thigh bees, the splints are truncated at the end of the outer spur.
Occurrence and way of life
The species is common in Europe, north to south of Finland. It inhabits mainly wetlands and lives solitary but in aggregations. The special thing about this species and the whole genus is that these bees collect fatty oil from the flowers of the loosestrife ( Lysimachia ). Pollen is also collected exclusively from the oil-producing yellow loosestrife, and the bees fly to nectar plants for self-sufficiency. The oil is used on the one hand to line brood cells that are created in the earth with the oil and to protect them against moisture and dehydration, and on the other hand the oil is used to make larval bread mixed with the pollen. The animals fly from late June to late August. Cuckoo bee of the species is Epeoloides coecutiens .
literature
- Felix Amiet, M. Herrmann, A. Müller, R. Neumeyer: Fauna Helvetica 20: Apidae 5 . Center Suisse de Cartographie de la Faune, 2007, ISBN 978-2-88414-032-4 .
- S. Vogel: Oil flowers and oil-collecting bees, Second episode: Lysimachia and Macropis , Academy of Science and Literature, Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, 1986.
- Charles Duncan Michener : The bees of the world. ISBN 0-8018-8573-6 .
- I. Schäffler, S. Dötterl: A day in the life of an oil bee: phenology, nesting, and foraging behavior. Apidology, 2011.
Web links
- Macropis europaea inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: Michez, D. & Nieto, A., 2012. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
- Video series "Oil flowers and oil-collecting bees" published by the Institute for Scientific Film .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Kraft: Wild Bee of the Year - Auen- Shankbiene at Vivara.de, accessed on June 12, 2020
Two-colored snail-shell bee (2013) | Big woolly bee (2014) | Bryony Sand Bee (2015) | Waldhummel (2016) | Knautien-Sandbiene (2017) | Yellow-bonded furrow bee (2018) | Mustard blue shimmering sand bee (2019) | European thighbee (2020)