Genus Lasioglossum

laz-ee-oh-GLOSS-um

Lasioglossum Curtis 1833

~290 spp. in 5 subgenera in our area, ~1760 spp. in 24 subgenera worldwide(1)

Subgenus not yet in the guide: Hemihalictus: (monotypic, e. US to ND-NM)(1)

2-8 mm

Slender, tiny to medium bees, dusky black, dull green or blue, with bands of hair on their abdomen. Some have a red abdomen (Michener 1994). They differ from Halictus by the location of hair bands on the segments of their abdomen. Lasioglossum has bands of hair on the innermost portion of each segment, whereas Halictus has bands of hair on the outermost portion of each segment (apical).

Identifying Lasioglossum to species is difficult because they look similar. Often the differences between species is the density of punctuations on the thorax and the surface texture between the punctuations. (2)

worldwide (Discover Life Map)(1)

They forage on a wide variety of flowers for pollen and nectar, they are generalists.

Male and female

Female in nest

Probably only fertilized females overwinter.

Some are cleptoparasites, some are nocturnal and some are oligolectic. They range from solitary to communal, semi-social and primitively eusocial.

They are very common at flowers, but usually not noticed because of their small size.

A key to the eastern species of subgenus dialictus can be found in Gibbs, J. 2011. Revision of the metallic Lasioglossum (Dialictus) of eastern North America (Hymenoptera: Halictidae: Halictini.) Zootaxa.(3)

Also in the outdated but still useful Mitchell (1960) https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/entomology/museum/downloads/Halictidae.pdf.

A key to Lasioglossum s.s. (4)

Discover Life

iNaturalist

The Great Sunflower Project