#nomiinae

[ljsbugblog]

very tiny, very sleepy.

Unknown Sweat Bee (subgenus Austronomia), April '24.

[dendroica]

Lipotriches, f, australia, side_2014-11-02-01.05.45 ZS PMax by Sam Droege on Flickr.

Lipotriches, Plain Sweat Bee , collected in Australia

This is one of the bees in which the males are known to form sleeping aggregations – small groups to dozens of individuals clustering together on the same twig late in the afternoon and remaining there until after dawn. There may be quite a lot of “jockeying for position” as males alight too close to another individual with low key aggressive interactions. Some clusters might contain more than one species. There has been little research on the reason for this aggregating behavior, although safety in numbers might play a role.

[dendroica]

Nomia heart antennae, m, 15266b02, face3, kenya_2014-08-05-07.17.38 ZS PMax by Sam Droege on Flickr.

From Kenya comes yet another Nomia with modifications to the basic bee format. You can see that like other Nomia this male has expanded leg segments, but the fabulous thing here are the dangling modified heart-shaped last segment of the antenna. Male bee antennae are modified quite frequently in the bee world, but this is one of the more extravagant. Another from the Laurence Packer fab bee lab.