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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies (Hymenoptera) » Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps » Apoidea (clade Anthophila) - Bees » Cuckoo, Carpenter, Digger, Bumble, and Honey Bees (Apidae) » Honey, Bumble, Longhorn, Orchid, and Digger Bees (Apinae) » Bumble Bees (Bombini) » Bumble Bees (Bombus) » Subgenus Bombus (Bombus Subgenus Bombus ) » Rusty-patched Bumble Bee (Bombus affinis) Species Bombus affinis - Rusty-patched Bumble Bee
Classification Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)
No Taxon (Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps)
No Taxon (Apoidea (clade Anthophila) - Bees)
Family Apidae (Cuckoo, Carpenter, Digger, Bumble, and Honey Bees)
Subfamily Apinae (Honey, Bumble, Longhorn, Orchid, and Digger Bees)
Tribe Bombini (Bumble Bees)
Genus Bombus (Bumble Bees)
No Taxon (Subgenus Bombus )
Species affinis (Rusty-patched Bumble Bee)
Explanation of Names Bombus affinis Cresson, 1863
common name refers to the rust-colored patch on the abdomen.
Size queen: body length 21-22 mm
male: 13-17.5 mm
worker: 11-16 mm
Identification Queens have a similar color pattern to B. vagans, with a yellow thorax and yellow T1 and T2 but in affinis the face and malar is much shorter, the hairs of the face are all black, and the coat is shorter and more uniform in length. Workers and males are distinctive in having a well-defined black interalar band (as opposed to a black medial spot) and in having an rusty-orange patch across the base of T2.
see detailed descriptions at discoverlife.org
Range MN to IN, plus a few remaining sites on east coast, see map per Xerces Society. Formerly Upper Midwest and Eastern North America: Ontario to New Brunswick, south to North Carolina. Historically known from more than 25 states.
Food The Hosts section of its Discover Life species page lists known associations based on specimen records and images.
Remarks Declines of this species were first noted by John S. Ascher at Ithaca, New York, ca. 2001 when populations that were conspicuous in the late 1990s could not be located. At this and many other localities across its historic range affinis is no longer detected, but it has been shown to persist locally in the midwest and in New England.
Abrupt and severe declines of this and other bumble bee species in this subgenus were widely reported soon after development of the commercial bumble bee industry and detection of high rates of parasitism in managed colonies.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced on 21 Sep 2016 a proposal to list the Rusty-patched Bumble Bee as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ruling was finalized on 11 Jan 2017 when the USFWS gave the species endangered status under the ESA. - source
**Listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species**
Internet References Wikipedia (extensive amount of info)
33 pinned adult images plus detailed descriptions of queen, worker, male, distribution, seasonality, flower records (discoverlife.org)
Bombus - Natural History Museum, UK
common name reference; PDF doc (Committee on Common Names of Insects, Entomological Society of America)
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