Bombus ashtoni, f, tail, albany, mccabe
Bombus ashtoni! This is news. This species of bumble bee is nest parasite. They take over the nests of other bumble bees and use the host's workers to produce their progeny. This one is special because its known hosts are B. affinis (the endangered Rusty-patched Bumble Bee) and B. terricola (a species that declined greatly from its former numbers, but may be recovering now. Thus the odds were stacked against our parasite friend, who may also be vulnerable to the pathogens that took out these species.
So, how cool was it when Matt Schlesinger/Amanda Dillon passed a few "interesting" bumble bees collected in the Albany Pine Bush in New York by specimens by Tim McCabe in 2016 and there it was.
Leif Richardson (keeper of the Bumble Bee Database) writes about the last eastern records for B. ashtoni: Michael Veit got it in NH in 2010 and MA in 2008. Sheila Colla has a 2008 record from Pinery in ON (west of the Appalachians). I have three records 2007-2008 from Michel Savard and Pierre-Marc Brousseau in Quebec. Next most recent are from Cory Sheffield in Nova Scotia, 2002.
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" Ode on a Grecian Urn"
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