#anthidium

[cnestus]

some excerpts from the 1988 paper An Extreme Case of Interspecific Territoriality: Male Anthidium manicatum (Hymenoptera, Megachilidae) Wound and Kill Intruders about how male european wool carder bees will attack on average over 70 other insects per hour by ramming into them ass-first.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Woolcarder Bees: these solitary bees collect the soft, downy hairs that grow on certain plants, roll the fibers into bundles, and then use the material to line their nests

Above: Anthidium manicatum, commonly known as the European woolcarder bee

Woolcarder bees build their nests in existing cavities, often finding a hole or crevice in a tree trunk, log, plant stem, or manmade structure and then lining it with plant fibers. These soft, cottony fibers are also used to form a series of brood cells.

The fibers are known as trichomes, and they're collected from the leaves and stems of many different plants, including lamb’s ear, globe thistle, mullein, and rose campion.

Above: a species of woolcarder bee known as Anthidium manicatum gathering trichomes in order to build its nest

Woolcarders are solitary bees, which means that they don't form colonies or live together in hives. Each female builds her own nest, and each male aggressively controls and defends his own territory.

Above: Anthidium florentinum, commonly known as the florentine woolcarder bee, constructing its nest in an empty keyhole

As this page explains:

The female uses her toothed mandibles to scrape trichomes off of fuzzy plants and collects a ball of the material under her abdomen. She transports these soft plant fibers to her selected nest site and uses them to line a brood cell. Next, she collects and deposits a provision of pollen and nectar into the cell, enough pollen to feed a larva until it is ready to pupate. Lastly, she lays a single egg on top of the pollen and nectar supply before sealing the cell. She will repeat this process with adjoining cells until the cavity is full.

Above: Anthidium manicatum

Female woolcarder bees will sometimes sting when their nests are threatened, but they're typically quite docile. The males, however, are notoriously aggressive -- they lack the ability to sting, but they will often chase, head-butt, wrestle, and/or decapitate any other insect that invades their territory. Some males have been known to defend their territory from intruders up to 70 times per hour.

The males are able to attack and fight other insects using a row of spikes located on the last segment of their abdomen. The central spike is the largest, and it's often used to decapitate other insects, because it has a wide, flat shape with a serrated edge, which allows it to function like a tiny bottle-opener; the woolcarder bee can simply slide that spike into the gap that separates the other insect's head from its thorax and then pry the head clean off. Woolcarder bees also have strong, sharp mandibles that can crush other bees.

There are many different types of woolcarder bee, but the most prolific is Anthidium manicatum, commonly known as the European woolcarder. Anthidium manicatum is a native species in many parts of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, but it has also become an established (and invasive) species throughout most of North America, South America, and New Zealand. It's the most widely distributed unmanaged bee in the world.

Above: a reticulated small-woolcarder, Pseudoanthidium reticulatum, and punctate woolcarder, Anthidium punctatum

Sources & More Info:

University of Florida: The Woolcarder Bee

University of Florida: European Woolcarder Bee, Anthidium manicatum

Oregon State University: European Woolcarder Bees

Bohart Museum of Entomology: Facts about the Woolcarder Bee (PDF)

Bumblebee Conservation Trust: Anthidium manicatum

World's Best Gardening Blog: European Woolcarder Bees: Likeable Bullies

Biological Invasions: Global Invasion by Anthidium manicatum

[bowelfly]

assorted MSPaint bug doodle commissions for @leafkidsblog @petedavidsonscock and @solidagold

[pablo-mv]

Anthidium chilense. Abejita nativa de Chile

[synalpheus]

Male Anthidium manicatum (European Wool Carder Bee, GER: Garten-Wollbiene). One of my favourite wild bee species!

[drhoz]

#2640 - Anthidium manicatum - European Woolcarder Bee

Accidentally introduced to many other parts of the world, where they've spread rapidly. They arrived in Aotearoa in 2006.

Best known for their habit of collecting the hair off particularly woolly plants like Lamb's-ear (Stachys sp.) - I'm pretty sure it's on a Stachys in the photo. The bundle is then carried back to their burrow to line the cell walls.

Unusually for a bee, the males are larger than the females, and highly territorial. This is probably related to the fact that the females are polyandrous, and the eggs are more likely to be fertilised by the sperm of her most recent mate. This is a strong evolutionary pressure to produce bees that can monopolise all the mates in their area, by driving off any rivals.

Lake Tekapo, Aotearoa New Zealand.

[addicted2wasps]

Some various macro shots taken with my new camera.

[usgsbiml]

Here is a prairie Anthidium.  A. psoraleae.  There are 36 Anthidiums in the U.S.  In the East and the Midwest, none are what you would call common any longer...except for 2 of the exotic ones A. oblongatum and A. manicatum.  They, are common.  Why?  Because they like weeds and are weedy themselves and in places where people with cameras live there are lots of weeds.  In fact, except for you, dear reader, the story of the average house is this:  Land in a luxurious state of unbelievable bioplexity is tornout, crushed, flattened, spread with subsoil from the new basement, and  in its place weed gardens advertently and inadvertently grown.  No native Anthidiums here, no sir, they need native plants not fake ones.  Nature wants you to fix that.  Photo by Cole Cheng and specimen from Minnesota from Patrick Pennarola's study of ...prairie restoration.