Mark Hepner collected this Puppy in West Virginia.
This lovely yellow and black species (a common pattern out there in the bee world) is one of those specialist bees that lives in its own little neighborhood.
That neighborhood for Paranthidium jugatorium is the world provided by Woodland Sunflowers...but only in the East, which means it is an Appalachian species. Out west it is a Gumweed specialist (or appears to be) and sticks pretty tight to the Rockies and west. Thus there is a big hiatus between the two populations. Are they different species? Very very likely, but where is the archetipical hero of this story? The bearer of the taxonomic sword ready to divide species in two! Sadly, they have been extirpated almost in their entirety in the United States and now exist in small numbers in Canada and Mexico. Picture by Erick Hernandez.
