Andrena barbara, f, face ,Prince Georges Co., MD
Andrena barbara, f, face ,Prince Georges Co., MD
Regionally common to sometimes even abundant, this is one of the larger Andrena of the spring. It can occur in almost any habitat, gathering pollen from a wide variety of the hugely abundant pollen and nectar sources that occur in Woodlands and surrounding scrub lands. While it doesn't show that well in these pictures, there is often just a slight glint of violet metallic sheen to its abdominal segments. In the picture of the face of this species, you can see quite well the slight indentations that make up the facial fovea, why these features are important enough to occur in almost every Andrena species is unknown and why they are aligned with small tiny hairs is also unknown. Something for future researchers to investigate. (As if there wasn't enough). Photograph by Greta Forbes.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know
" Ode on a Grecian Urn"
John Keats. Original public domain image from Flickr