This 12 mm male common longhorn bee (Melissodes communis) was found resting in a garden on non-native wild kopevia (Bulbine frutescens). Other males around it were drinking nectar from the same plant. This bee has long antennae, bright yellow facial markings, and a head, thorax and legs covered with mostly pale hairs. Some rust-colored and dark hairs appear on the thorax. (Some males of this species have more dark thorax hair than the bee shown here, less dark thorax hair, or differently-colored dark thorax hair.)

​

The bee’s abdomen is black and banded on the second, third and fourth segments (T2, T3 & T4) by white hairs set back from the rim of each segment. (T1 and T2 also have white hairs along the base and sides of each segment.) T5 and T6 are covered with dark hairs; a few white hairs appear on either side of T5. The bee’s wings are brown, growing darker and more opaque in the outer half.

​

SIMILAR SPECIES: Male Melissodes communis are easy to confuse with males of two other Florida longhorn bee species (also widespread outside of Florida) -- Melissodes tepaneca (the Tepanec longhorn bee) and Melissodes comptoides (the dark-winged longhorn bee). Males of these three species are usually separated by differences in minute traits visible only with magnification (pits on the thorax and abdomen, the length of antennal segments, etc.). The following general traits, however, can help differentiate these species:

​

(1) The male MELISSODES TEPANECA has a band of white hairs on the fifth segment of the abdomen (T5) – as noted above, on male M. communis, the hairs on T5 are almost entirely black. The wings of Melissodes tepaneca are usually yellowish and glassy (nearly transparent). As noted above, the wings of Melissodes communis are brown. (Those of M. comptoides are dark brown.)

​

(2) Male MELISSODES COMPTOIDES are harder to tell apart from male M. communis. A detail that sometimes helps rule out Melissodes comptoides relates to the hairs on the thorax (on the scutum and scutellum). On male Melissodes comptoides, such thorax hair is entirely pale (blond or pale gold or pale orangish gold). On male Melissodes communis, the hairs on top of the thorax sometimes look entirely pale, but more commonly, there are many dark hairs as well. These usually appear as central patches of dark hair outlined by light hair, as on the bee here.