Elegant Masked Bee
S3, Female, Wing Venation
Ellura
Elegant Masked Bee
S3, Female, Face
 
                      
Elegant Masked Bee (Hylaeus elegans)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Ant Bee Wasps (Hymenoptera)
Family: Colletid Bee (Bee: Colletidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Elegant Masked Bee (Hylaeus elegans)
This Photo:     S2, Female, Face

Thank you BaronSamedi for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
~9mm long.
We thought these were H. dromedarius by colour matching. But it turns out colour matching isn't very reliable with these.
On iNaturalist, Bernhard Jacobi said "The male elegans can be easily differentiated from dromedarius by the name-sake humped metasoma of the latter."
Padil has a good image of a male making it clear how different it is to ours: Hylaeus dromedarius

Copyright © 2021-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 08-Feb-2021
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.