jessmullins's Favorites

Bit of a surprise I gather. There were at least two (female also added separately) among what I presume were native lignaria. This mason bee house has not been maintained for a couple years, so I'm not sure where these originated or if they're established.

Triepeolus zacatecus, a large male bee, measuring 17 mm, found feeding on guajillo (Senegalia berlandieri), in a semi-arid barretal habitat of La Puerta Tract, Starr Co. Identified from specimen by John L. Neff of the Central Texas Melittological Institute. This species is similar to Triepeolus grandis.

so there have been lots of taurus in the area. this one started picking up in frequency, never saw it land anywhere. didn't know if it was a bigger form of taurus or what. it was only attracted to bricks, and less often wood. haven't really seen many of them in the last few days. behavior was completely different than the taurus who were erratically flying fast from flower to flower, hard to keep up with. this one would just have at a brick, then stay there, never land, then dark off to another brick. much bigger than the taurus that have been pollinating flowers over the last month

This lizard found a Chimney Bee nest and was grabbing the bees as they arrived and departed the nest. In the first photo you can see the nest hole in front of the lizard as it eats a bee. The second photo is a zoomed-in shot. Half the bee it was eating is on the ground in this photo.