Eucera longicornis
| Distribution: | The Paleartic |
| Size: | 13mm body |
| Diet: | Nectar |
Male E.longicornis have extremely long antennae – the length of the head and body combined. I, however, accidentally drew a female, whose antennae are completely unremarkable. Whoops.
Here’s an interesting fact courtesy of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust:
Male Long-horned bees are often deceived by Bee orchids (Ophrys species). These flowers not only look like bees in shape, colour and size, they also emit pheromones to trick unsuspecting males into thinking they are a potential mate.
I photographed this individual in the Natural History Museum’s specimen collection – they have a brilliant camera set up that allows you to take a number of high quality photos at different distances and then combine them into 1 sharp image (a process known as focus stacking).
Take a closer look…
