SHARP-EATMAN
NATURE
PHOTOGRAPHY
IDENTIFICATION PAGE # 11
September, 2020
WILD BEES OF THE NATIONAL BUTTERFLY CENTER
Mission, Texas
Questions about Coelioxys texanus
I just wanted a confirmation of the identification of the male bee below as a Coelioxys texanus. The pedicels and scapes of the bee are black rather than red. Farther below are examples of other Coelioxys texanus you identified for us -- these have the usual red pedicels and scapes. The following information is listed in the Discover Life Database page for Coelioxys texanus: "In both sexes of Coelioxys texana the antennal scape and pedicel are usually ferruginous, a condition found in no other North American Coelioxys spp."
Texas Cuckoo Leafcutter Bee (male)
Coelioxys texanus
Family: Megachildae
Size: 11 mm (male)
14 mm (female)
Associated plant at NBC:
Mexican hat
(Rabatida columnifera)
Family: Asteraceae
When seen: October 2019
male bee
Vertex, scutum & scutellum
The antennal scapes and pedicels of this bee are black.
Below are the male and female bees with red scapes & pedicels.
Colioxys texanus (male)
Family: Megachildae
Size: 11 mm (male)
Associated plant at NBC:
Resinbush
(Viguiera stenoloba)
Family: Asteraceae
When seen: October 2019
Male bee
Close-up of head and vertex
The scapes and pedicels of the male bee's antennae are red.
Female Coelioxys
Dorsal view of head & thorax
CLose-up of scutum & scutellum
Vertex, showing squamose hairs
View of ocelli -- there is a tuft of hair in front of the anterior ocellus, and the area around it looks swollen and impunctate.
Female bee
Female bee
This is a large female bee - 14 mm -- found feeding on goldenrod, about ten
yards from the bush where the male Coelioxys shown above appeared two days earlier. As with the male bee, the scapes and pedicels of this female bee are red.
The tip of S6 is blunt -- this is why I think this is C. texanus instead of C. hunteri?
The bee also has a tuft of white hair in front of the central ocellus. Matted hairs obscure most of the bee's jaws, also a trait of C. texanus.
Colioxys texanus (female)
Family: Megachildae
Size: 14 mm (male)
Associated plant at NBC:
Seaside godenrod
Solidago sempervirens)
Family: Asteraceae
When seen: October 2019