Tunnelers of Love: the Most Boring Bee in America

[thrillingdetectivetales]

I did another bee post! You can read it here.

Have a snippet to whet your appetite:

Other newly discovered species have been long extinct—take the Kem Kem Abelisaur, the fossilized bones of which were believed to be those of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex until earlier this year—or are teetering on the brink of extinction themselves, like the Brazilian Dinizia jueirana-facao tree, which can grow as tall as a 12-story building and weigh up to 62 tons. Despite its imposing size, this massive 2017 addition to the legume family escaped the notice of the scientific community for many years because there are only 25 of them left in existence.

The insect world in particular is considered to be fertile ground for new species to be identified. As is true in many instances, the smaller things are, the easier they are to overlook. And sometimes, even after those small things have initially been discovered, they get stuck in a drawer and forgotten for a few decades before someone with the time and inclination to properly classify them comes along.

Such it was with this week’s terrific tunneling species: the pueblo bee.

Comments

[luzula]

Did you forget to put the link in? Also, do you have bees of your own? : )

[thrillingdetectivetales]

I did forget to put the link in, lol. My bad!

I don't currently have bees, as I'm in an apartment, but a friend of a friend is interested in keeping a hive on their property so their kids can learn about bees so I may be putting one up and managing it for them next year, which will be extremely cool if it works out!