White-legged Masked Bee
Male? White legs
White-legged Masked Bee
Male? Ventral
| White-legged Masked Bee Male? White legs | | White-legged Masked Bee Male? Ventral | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Ant Bee Wasps (Hymenoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Colletid Bee (Bee: Colletidae) | ||||
| Species: | White-legged Masked Bee (Hylaeus sp ES6) | ||||
| This Photo: | Male? Yellow-face Mask | ||||
Thank you Dr John Ascher for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere This one looks similar to Hylaeus dromedarius & Hylaeus elegans, but the middle & rear legs aren't yellow. Plus there's no side stripes on the pronotum. It's also very similar to & the one above (Hylaeus sp ES2), again the front legs are different colours as are the antennae bases. Notice the tibia of each leg has a white band through it. We're surprised at how many species are in this genus! We suspect this one is a male as it has long antennae & no pollen storage hair for the nest; ergo it eats pollen only. Surprisingly, the yellow face & markings when it was in the flowers we not visible/obvious; just the red abdomen! | |||||
| |||||
| |||||