Colletes ciliatus, f, face, jugbay,MD
Super cool, Super rare, Super fun. Who would say such a thing about a little brown bee? In this case it is Colletes ciliatus. Here is a bee that was featured in a paper we wrote several years ago as one of the "missing bees" not seen for many years. It has only a few records; all from the MidWest with one specimen from Alexandria (the town across from Washington D.C.) . Then Tim McMahon found one on Dodder at the edge of the marsh in Jug Bay on the Patuxent River in October in Maryland. A little poking and we found another record on Dodder from the MidWest. So, it may be possible that we need to collect more on Dodder which has small blooms and is difficult to collect off of. Afterwards Don Harvey collected a male also on Dodder from the same area. A nice advance of the natural history and perhaps conservation of this rare species. Pictures by Jade Louis...her first for the lab.
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde. Original public domain image from Flickr