As with other woodland insects, the fortunes of several bees have been adversely affected by modern woodland management - the abandonment of coppicing leading to stands of mature broadleaved trees or the establishment of coniferous plantations. Both these woodland types eventually shade out the understorey and its rich and varied herb communities. One bee adversely affected by such changes is Osmia pilicornis, though where suitable conditions exist it can still be locally common.
A paper describing the biology and habitat of this species Distribution, biology and… Read more
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Submitted by Anonymous on
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Submitted by Anonymous on
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Several years ago, D B Baker and G R Else found that the series of Scottish Osmia inermis in the Natural History Museum, London, consisted of two closely related species: O. inermis and O. uncinata. The latter was a species not previously known from the British Isles.
Submitted by Anonymous on
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The four species of Stelis which occur in the British Isles are all rare bees, in contrast to some other cleptoparasitic bee genera which contain species which are often locally common.
Submitted by Anonymous on
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The first British specimen of this bee was collected near Tilshead, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, on 9 July 1949 by the late P W E Currie. However, about fifteen years were to elapse before its identity was established by D B Baker and the record published as Pseudocilissa dimidiata (Baker, 1964).
Submitted by Anonymous on
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The largest of the nine British species in the genus, with a population that apparently differs slightly from the Continental race in both morphological and ecological respects. As a result, it has been recognised as a distinct subspecies, C. cunicularius celticus, by O'Toole (1974). More recently, major differences between the Continental and British populations have been found in the chemistry of the Dufour's gland secretions (Albans et al., 1980; Duffield et al., in Bell & Carde, 1984), raising the possibility that the British populations may be specifically distinct.
Submitted by Anonymous on
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This species is very similar in appearance, size (4-7 mm) and nesting habits to Formica fusca, but was firmly described and keyed by Yarrow in I954. Workers differ from those of F. fusca by the presence of short stubby hairs on the promesonotal dorsum which is usually bare in F. fusca, and there are good diagnostic differences in males and queens (Skinner & A llen 1990).
Editor's note. The original profile combined the two species F. fusca and F. lemani but this… Read more
Submitted by admin on
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This article only applies to the nominated recipient of account registration request emails.
When someone requests access to the site, you will receive an email with a link to index.php?q=admin/user/user/list. Follow the link then click the edit link for the new user (whose account should have their Status set to blocked).
On the Edit user form, set the radio button for their account status to active. If you need to grant site… Read more
Submitted by admin on
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If you are a member of the advanced site editor role, then you can access the species account importer. Before doing this you need to prepare the atlas texts ready to copy in for the species you want to import. Adhere to the following rules:
- Each atlas text should start with a binomial species name and author, and an asterisk at the start of the line. If the binomial name already exists then the importer will update the existing account (including moving to a new place in the hierarchy if necessary).
- On the next line, put the family in… Read more
Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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A large, attractive mining bee which occurs in two colour forms, more noticeably in females than in males. In females the most frequent form has a largely black gaster, whereas in the other form, tergites 1-2 (occasionally 3) and sternite 2 are conspicuously marked with red (figured by Westrich (1989)). Males usually have black gasters, though in some, tergites 1-3 are posteriorly marked with red. Andrena hattorfiana, in common with A. marginata Fabricius, is strongly associated with scabious… Read more