Hesperocolletes douglasi | |
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Genus: | Hesperocolletes |
Species: | H. douglasi |
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Hesperocolletes douglasi Michener, 1965 | |
Hesperocolletes douglasi, the Rottnest bee or Douglas's broad-headed bee, is a rediscovered species of plasterer bee that is endemic to Australia, and the sole known member of the genus Hesperocolletes.
It was described from a single specimen collected in 1938 on Rottnest Island, located off the coast of Western Australia. A second specimen was found in 2015, in Banksia woodland at Pinjar, Western Australia. [1] [2]
The bee's body is black, shiny and 12 mm long and wings were brown and up to 8 mm long.
It is about the same size as a honeybee. It is generally black and brown and moderately hairy. [3]
Hesperocolletes douglasi is superficially like a number of other native bees and careful examination under a microscope would be required to distinguish a specimen. [3]
Bee expert Charles Michener described and named the species in 1965 on the basis of the 1938 specimen, designating it as the holotype, and created the monotypic genus Hesperocolletes for Hesperocolletes douglasi alone. [4] No record of the circumstances of capture (e.g. flowers visited) is available. [3]
The species, which is named for its collector, A.M. Douglas, [2] belongs to the subfamily Paracolletinae, part of the large family Colletidae. Colletids are characterized by having a short, broad, blunt tongue ("glossa") (a flexible, hairy appendage at the end of the proboscis, not always visible as it can be retracted).
Paracolletines (at least in most species, including Hesperocolletes douglasi) have three submarginal cells in the fore wing and females usually have densely hairy hind legs (for carrying pollen). [3] The diagnostic characters of H. douglasi can occur individually in various paracolletine bees, and it is the combination of those features that one must look for: [3]
A further, female, specimen was found in 2015, in "an isolated banksia woodland remnant in the Southwest Floristic Region of Western Australia (...) in the Gnangara-Moore River State Forest, north of Perth". [2]
After its rediscovery in 2015, [2] Hesperocolletes douglasi's conservation status has been changed from "presumed extinct" to "critically endangered" [5] under the Western Australian Wildlife Conservation Act. [3] Little is known about the biology, ecology and geographic range of this rare native bee species, and its rediscovery highlights the importance of preservation, restoration and proper management of remnant vegetation in face of anthropogenic threats to safeguard habitat for biodiversity. [2]
Banksia is a genus of around 170 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and woody fruiting "cones" and heads. Banksias range in size from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up to 30 metres (100 ft) tall. They are found in a wide variety of landscapes: sclerophyll forest, (occasionally) rainforest, shrubland, and some more arid landscapes, though not in Australia's deserts.
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Banksia goodii, commonly known as Good's banksia, is a species of prostrate shrub that is endemic to a small area in the south-west of Western Australia. It has densely hairy stems, wavy, oblong to egg-shaped leaves with irregularly serrated margins, rusty-brown flowers and hairy fruit. It grows in low forest and woodland near Albany and is listed as "endangered".
Banksia brownii, commonly known as feather-leaved banksia or Brown's banksia, is a species of shrub that grows in southwest Western Australia. A plant with fine feathery leaves and large red-brown flower spikes, it usually grows as an upright bush around two metres (6.6 ft) high, but can also occur as a small tree or a low spreading shrub. First collected in 1829 and published the following year, it is placed in Banksiasubgenus Banksia, section Oncostylis, series Spicigerae. There are two genetically distinct forms.
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Eremophila pantonii, commonly known as broombush, is a flowering plant in the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae and is endemic to Western Australia. It is a broom-shaped shrub with narrow leaves which have a hooked tip, and blue or purple, sometimes white flowers in winter and spring.
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