[Pollinator] Fwd: New Bee Species in Australia

Thu Sep 22 19:35:16 PDT 2016

>From Dr Walker (forwarded by me):

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Walker, Ken <kwalker at museum.vic.gov.au>
Date: Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 9:25 PM
Subject: RE: New Bee Species in Australia
To: Peter Bernhardt <bernhap2 at slu.edu>, Bee United <
beemonitoring at yahoogroups.com>, Pollinator List-serv <
pollinator at lists.sonic.net>, Gerardo Camilo <camilogr at slu.edu>, Michael
Arduser <arduser.michael at gmail.com>, mike arduser <arduser.mike at gmail.com>

Hi All,

Australian *Euhesma* bees are indeed a “weird” bee group – but Australian
bees have many “weird” species uniquely adapted to our dry climate.
Although belonging to the “short tongue” bee family Colletidae, *Euhesma*
bees often display amazing head and mouthpart modifications to access
nectaries hidden in deep tubular flowers.

The association between mouthpart modifications and feeding on *Eremophila*
is well known and these new species add more species to that list.

The Zookeys paper describing these new species (with great sets of images)
is open access here: http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=6185

The below URL is a comparative image table showing dorsal, lateral and head
front images for most of the Australian *Euhesma* species - except the
recently described species.  You can see the narrow head modification pops
up quite often in this genus.

(Please give this URL a while to resolve as it is on a slow server).

http://www.padil.gov.au/pollinators/compare/images?
pests=138994+138995+138996+138997+140652+138998+139000+
139001+139002+139003+139004+138596+139006+139007+139009+
139010+139011+139012+139015+139016+139017+139018+139020+
139021+139022+139023+139024+139026+139028+139029+139030+
139031+139032+139094+139064+139062+139266+139095+139065+
139753+139061+139267+139755+139102+139103+139104+138597+
139066+139101+139060+139096+139059+140595+139100+139097+
139067+139098+139068+139058+139099+139063+139069+140607+
140596+140606&characterTypes=17987+17991+17988

However for me, the most bizarre *Euhesma* mouthpart modification belongs
to a species called *Euhesma tubulifera*.  This species is restricted to
south west Western Australia and visits the long corolla red flowers of
*Calothamnus*.  Instead of “just” elongating its palps and then holding
them together and through capillary action get the nectar to rise to the
short glossa, this bee has elongated its palps to almost the entire length
of its body but them fused them into a straw-like cylinder which it pokes
into the recessed nectaries and again through capillary action draws up the
nectar to the short tongue glossa.  Very cool.

This species was first described in 1983 but it took until 2011 for a
citizen science person (Ms Linda Rogan) to first photograph this bee using
its unusual mouthparts.  I have put together a montage of images showing
this species.

View here:  http://researchdata.museum.vic.gov.au/padil/tubulifera_1.jpg

And, here is yet another “weird” desert adapted Australian bee – this time
a halictine which occurs in some of the driest parts of central Australia.
It occurs only at salt pan, mound springs.  These are small areas where
highly salty water bubbles to the surface and the bubbling action forms a
raised mound of sand/dirt.  The only plant to grow on the sides of these
mounds is *Frankenia* and there is a bee that nests in the mound and feeds
on this plant. The first specimen I saw of this species was in a collection
and it was labelled “deformed” as the head is elongated due to a massive
extension of the clypeus.  The mouthparts, in particular, the mentum and
prementum (base of the mouthparts) are so elongated that this is the only
Australian bee in which the fore coxae are widely separated to allow the
mouthparts to sit between the fore coxae when at rest.  I visited one of
these mound springs on a 40+ Celsius day and collected both sexes (males
for the first time) and then I named the species *Lasioglossum
(Chilalictus) frankenia*.  I have put together another montage of images
showing the unusual features of this Aussie bee.

http://researchdata.museum.vic.gov.au/padil/frankenia.jpg

Enjoy.

Cheers

Ken

*From:* Peter Bernhardt [mailto:bernhap2 at slu.edu]
*Sent:* Friday, 23 September 2016 10:34 AM
*To:* Bee United <beemonitoring at yahoogroups.com>; Pollinator List-serv <
pollinator at lists.sonic.net>; Gerardo Camilo <camilogr at slu.edu>; Michael
Arduser <arduser.michael at gmail.com>; mike arduser <arduser.mike at gmail.com>;
Walker, Ken <kwalker at museum.vic.gov.au>
*Subject:* New Bee Species in Australia

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*A colleague at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney sent me the following
news release.  I went to the site but found only a photograph of the new
Amegilla (teddy bear) bee.  Would someone have a photo to share of bees in
the genus Euhesma?  Are narrow heads that unusual in this genus? I'd need
to check old papers and notebooks but believe I collected some Euhesma
species on Acacia back in the early 1980's.*

*For those unfamiliar with emu bush or native fuchsia (Eremophila;
Myoporaceae), this is a genus of over 200 species found primarily in
Australia's drier, land west.  Supposedly the shiny fruits of some species
are eaten by emus.  Flowers of different species are variable in size and
color but the only ones I'm familiar with are red, scentless and pollinated
by native birds in the Meliphagidae.  For a closer look at the flowers see
the following link...*

http://anpsa.org.au/APOL22/jun01-2.html

Peter

*From:* Ifeanna Tooth
*Sent:* Thursday, 22 September 2016 9:32 AM
*To:* _RBGDT-SCIENCE & CONSERVATION BRANCH <PlantSciencesBranch@
environment.nsw.gov.au>
*Subject:* New species of Eremophila pollinating bee found in SA

Hi Everyone, I thought some of you might find this interesting, regards,
Ifeanna

South Australian bee specialists have uncovered four new native bee species
– three of them with special narrow heads and unusual long mouth parts
allowing them to feed on emu bush flowers.

The four new native bees were found during the nature discovery project
Bush Blitz expeditions at Cane River Conservation Park in the Pilbara
region, WA, and Bon Bon State Reserve, south of Coober Pedy, in SA.

Published in the journal ZooKeys
<http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=6185> and led by the University
of Adelaide’s Dr Katja Hogendoorn
<http://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/katja.hogendoorn>, the researchers
describe the four new species in the genus Euhesma, based on evaluation of
DNA ‘barcoding’ and morphological comparison of the bees with museum
specimens.

The project is a collaboration with Dr Remko Leijs and Associate Professor
Mark Stevens from the South Australian Museum.

From: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news80582.html

See image at: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/
australias-largest-species-discovery-program-makes-
discovery-near-roxby-downs/news-story/9413d522fc55b9a70188835e469c163b
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