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Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies (Hymenoptera)
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Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps
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Apoidea (clade Anthophila) - Bees
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Cuckoo, Carpenter, Digger, Bumble, and Honey Bees (Apidae)
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Cuckoo Bees (Nomadinae)
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Townsendiellini
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Townsendiella
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Townsendiella rufiventris
Photo#1655252
Copyright © 2019
Aaron Schusteff
Very small, short white-hairy cuckoo bee...with red abdomen & mostly black elsewhere -
Townsendiella rufiventris
Glorietta Canyon, Anza-Borrego State Park, San Diego County, California, USA
March 26, 2019
This one was very small (those were grains of sand of intermediate coarseness that it was resting on).
A neat-looking creature.
Images of this individual:
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Contributed by
Aaron Schusteff
on 25 April, 2019 - 9:27pm
Last updated 27 April, 2019 - 3:48am
Moved
Moved from
Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps
.
…
John S. Ascher
, 25 April, 2019 - 10:18pm
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Great! Thanks, John :-)
I checked out
Orr & Griswold(2015)
and can appreciate why you placed this to species
rufiventris
...due to the diagnostic and fairly conspicuous "bump" produced from the medial tip of the metanotum (their Fig. 7 for
T. ensifera
shows the case where the bump in lacking, and clarified the character for me). That character is apparently unique to
rufiventris
, and the
range map
shows the general Borrego Springs area as compatible with
T. rufiventris
(though
T. pulchra
is also compatible with the locale here).
As far as determining whether this is a male or female...I'm having a hard time distinguishing the antennomeres (getting both 12 and 13 in different attempts at counting ;-). But zooming-in on the full-size version of the image above, I
think
I can see a straight, narrow, black ovipositor (from lighting, positioning, and probability...I don't think it's a groove in the sand grain behind the terminus of the abdomen). And the shape of the tip of the abdomen seems similar to that in the female of
T. ensifera
shown in
Fig. 7
of Orr & Griswold(2015).
Also, Orr & Griswold indicate the likely host bee for this cuckoo is associated with
Phacelia
, and there were loads of flowering
Phacelia distans
in the vicinity.
A neat genus...great to see it.
…
Aaron Schusteff
, 25 April, 2019 - 11:53pm
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