Images

A wee little Anthophora. Meet Anthophora flexipes. I don't know much about this species since it lives out West where I don't live, but it is cute and it is an Anthophora. Collected way up the mountains from a burn study in Yosemite National Park by Claire Kremen's bee study group.

Compact small bee want to meet compact small flowers. Anthophora flexipes is definitely cute, though, of course, we can let that shade its importance as a pollinator in the high lands of Yosemite National Park.

A wee little Anthophora. Meet Anthophora flexipes. I don't know much about this species since it lives out West where I don't live, but it is cute and it is an Anthophora. Collected way up the mountains from a burn study in Yosemite National Park by Claire Kremen's bee study group.

A wee little Anthophora. Meet Anthophora flexipes. I don't know much about this species since it lives out West where I don't live, but it is cute and it is an Anthophora. Collected way up the mountains from a burn study in Yosemite National Park by Claire Kremen's bee study group.

Compact small bee want to meet compact small flowers. Anthophora flexipes is definitely cute, though, of course, we can let that shade its importance as a pollinator in the high lands of Yosemite National Park.

Now the back of the previous specimen, note the strong white/cream bands on the abdomen, one related group of Anthophora have these integument bands while the other species the integument is entirely black....tricky to photograph as it quickly burns the detail in the white.Note the tattered wings...this male was getting old...This bee was collected as part of a surv

This bee was collected as part of a survey of Rocky Mountain National Park. The size of a bumblebee, but has all those cream colored markings on its face that Bumblebees never have. A male in this case.

Third in the series, you can see the characters in the forewing that make this an Anthophora....the lack of hair in the interior of the wing cells and the regularly spaced little pappilate mounds with a hair sticking out of them outside of those cells.

Very raggedy picture of Anthophora occidentalis from the Badlands of South Dakota

Very raggedy picture of Anthophora occidentalis from the Badlands of South Dakota

Very raggedy picture of Anthophora occidentalis from the Badlands of South Dakota

Female, Anthophora plumipes, introduced into Maryland from Japan in the 1980s...and now common in the DC region. Likely to be split from A. plumipes back to an earlier synonym A. pilipes due to recent molecular work

Introduced species from Japan...now found throughout the Washington D.C. area...very abundant and expected to spread.

Male, Anthophora plumipes, introduced into Maryland from Japan in the 1980s...and now common in the DC region. Likely to be split from A. plumipes back to an earlier synonym A. pilipes due to recent molecular work

The male of a relatively new introduced species from Japan. Likes to nest in adobe walls of buildings and underneath decks. Photoshopping by Thistle Droege and Photography by Brooke Alexander.

Anthophora porterae from the Badlands of South Dakota. This group of bees are the furry teddy bears of the bee world. Collected as part of a large study of the bees of the national park of the same name.

One of the common Anthophora species found in early spring in the olive groves of Greece. They're visiting many spring flowers that provide a lot of nectar and pollen, like Muscari and Asphodelus. This particular specimen was collected by Jelle Devalez who hunts bees in the Aegean islands..

One of the common Anthophora species found in early spring in the olive groves of Greece. They're visiting many spring flowers that provide a lot of nectar and pollen, like Muscari and Asphodelus. This particular specimen was collected by Jelle Devalez who hunts bees in the Aegean islands.

One of the common Anthophora species found in early spring in the olive groves of Greece. They're visiting many spring flowers that provide a lot of nectar and pollen, like Muscari and Asphodelus. This particular specimen was collected by Jelle Devalez who hunts bees in the Aegean islands.

OK, maybe not the best picture, but this is Anthophora terminalis. The females, as you see here, have a red tip to the abdomen (technically: the bee's butt). Small than other Anthophora (at least in the Eastern U.S.) and different in that they do not nest in dirt banks or the ground like their big cousins, but in plant stems.

Anthophora terminalis, collected in Morris Arboretum by Stephanie Wilson and photoshopped by Ann Simpkins