Tag: insects

I think that the featured image’s “bee” is a bee, and also a member of one of the bigger of Australia’s many native bee species.

At 2.15 pm on 30 October 2023 the sun had been shining brightly for six hours or more, so it is probably safe to assume that I was photographing a “working bee”.

However, s/he just might have been a late-awakening “sleeping bee”; some native bees shelter inside flowers that “close” overnight, and whenever else there is an absence of bright sunlight and warmth.

This post’s six-legged hero is not a Christmas beetle, and the flower which s/he is targeting (and, thereby, probably pollinating) is one of several related “devils”.

These handicaps notwithstanding, “handsome beetle + star-shaped flower head” yields a “Christmassy” image…however accidentally!

Generally, when Australian humans think of bees, they are thinking of Apis mellifera, the so-called “western” – or “European” – honey bee.

When Australian humans venture outdoors, Apis mellifera is the only bee species that most of them ever notice and/or recognise.

Australia has an estimated two thousand native bee species; circa 1,600 of them have been identified.

Around 800 identified species live in Western Australia; many of them live only in some part/s of Western Australia.