Shiny-vented Sharp-tail Bee - Coelioxys inermis
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Species Description
Widespread but scattered and local in the Southern half of the UK. Habitat includes: Flower-rich sites wherever the host occurs such as gardens, parks, allotments, churchyards, woodland, scrub, meadows, coasts, old quarries, wasteland etc. Nectars on Trefoils, Clovers, Scabious, Sheep’s-bit etc. To add to this list I have recorded Females use Common Fleabane. Hosts: Megachile centuncularis (Patchwork Leafcutter Bee), M. versicolor (Brown-footed Leafcutter Bee). Flight period: Late June to August.
ID:
Males:
- Dense hairs alongside the groove (gradulus) across tergite 2 with hair band broken in the middle
- Silvery-looking
- Genitalia - tips of gonostyli with short, sparse hairs (long and dense in elongata).
Females:
- Two sharp teeth on either side near apex of sternite 6
- Mandibles discrete and curved
- Shiny, punctate sternite 4 which contrasts strongly with the duller sternite 5 (sternite 4 dull, shagreened and mostly impunctate in elongata).
- Apex of tergite 5 is bluntly pointed