#chilalictus

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Wonder of native bees

Our Natural Areas team have had a real treat this month with one of our hidden cameras capturing a native bee collecting pollen from our own critically...

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#1678 - Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) sp.

From an Australian subgenus of the huge Sweat Bee genus Lasioglossum. There’s over 1700 species of Lasioglossum worldwide, and well over 100 species from the Chilalictus subgenus, most of them described by Ken Walker in 1995. 

Lasioglossum bees usually nest underground, and may be solitary, communal, or eusocial, and some species are cleptoparasites or social parasites. In at least two of our communal Clilalictus species, the females will happily regurgitate food for other bees of the same species, even if those females come from a nest kilometers away. 

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Two Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) cf willsi  returning to nest laden with pollen, Starts with an ant dropping a pebble into the nest

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#2104 - Lasioglossum sp., Subg. Chilalictus - Sweat Bees

While mailing off a boxful of interesting beetles from Mt. Ainsley to a Coleopterist I know, I noticed that the flowers growing on the verge had occupants. At least a third of them had these bees, jammed headfirst deep inside the flower, apparently asleep.

There are over 200 species of Chilalictus, and Lasioglossum itself is huge - over 1800 known species. They range widely in appearance, and even more so in behaviour - some specials are solitary, some primitively eusocial, and some kleptoparasitic. Lasioglossum malachurum, the sharp-collared furrow bee, is a Eurpean eusocial species that has been closely studied - even more so after early entomologists realised they'd thought the queens and workers were different species. The degree of eusociality varies according to the climate - in Southern Greece the nests outlive the queen, and her final brood of workers and males mate among themselves.

Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) erythrurum is an Australian communal species, with hundreds of sharing a nest. Workers will share regurgitated nectar with others of their own species, even if they're not from the same nest.

Some species are specialist pollinators, targeting a very narrow range of plants for their food supply.

Ainsley, ACT.

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These bees demonstrate communal sharing of a single nest site