Ornamental bees

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Ornamental bees
Epeoloides coecutiens, female, with their upper jaws bitten to a stalk to sleep

Epeoloides coecutiens , female, with their upper jaws bitten to a stalk to sleep

Systematics
Order : Hymenoptera (Hymenoptera)
Superfamily : Apoidea
without rank: Bees (Apiformes)
Family : Real bees (Apidae)
Genre : Ornamental bees
Scientific name
Epeoloides
Giraud , 1863

The jewel bees ( Epeoloides ) are a genus from the Apidae family within the bees . So far, only two species of them are known worldwide, one of which is native to North America and one in Europe . Ornamental bees are brood parasites on thigh bees ( Macropis ) and are therefore counted among the cuckoo bees .

features

Ornamental bees are medium-sized, with Epeoloides coecutiens reaching a body length of 9 to 10 millimeters. They have a dark red and black colored abdomen, which, like the thighs ( femora ), has large white spots. The bees, adapted to their parasitic way of life, do not have any hairbrushes ( scopae ) to collect pollen. The head and thorax are finely haired, otherwise the body surface is shiny.

Occurrence

Epeoloides pilosula is distributed in central North America, from Ontario , Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada and Michigan to the states of New England and south to Georgia in the USA . Epeoloides coecutiens occurs in large parts of Europe. In North America the animals fly in June and July, in Europe from July to August. The North American species is very rare and endangered.

Systematics

The genus Epeoloides belongs to the subfamily Apinae within the family Apidae . This subfamily is divided into many tribe . Epeoloides belongs to the Osirini tribe , the species of this tribe are all cuckoo bees and they have been part of the nomadinae for a long time . Only five genera of the tribe Osirini are known: Epeoloides , Osirinus (7 species), Osiria (21 species), Parepeolus (5 aretas) Protosiris (4 species).

species

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Epeoloides. FaunaEuropaea, accessed May 11, 2009 .
  2. ↑ a b Ch. D. Michener: The Bees of the World . The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore 2007, pp. 674 ff .

literature

  • Andreas Müller, Albert Krebs, Felix Amiet: Bees. Central European species, way of life, observation. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-89440-241-5 .

Web links

Commons : Ornamental Bees ( Epeoloides )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files