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Gold-tipped Leafcutter Bee - Megachile (Eutricharaea) chrysopyga
Family MEGACHILIDAE
This page contains pictures and information about Gold-tipped Leafcutter Bees that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 15mm
- We sometimes find this Leafcutter Bee on flower in garden during summer. They are medium in size. The bee has a relatively flat body. They have the large and wide head with greyish-yellow hairs on face. Its thorax is hairy with four small tufts of white hair. The top of abdomen is smooth, with white and black striped colour. The abdomen bottom is bright yellow in colour.
- Male ? Female
- From the reference information, male Gold-tipped Leafcutter Bee has a patch of orange hair on the last segment of the abdomen. We believed the bee in the above 1st photo is the male and the 2nd photo is the female..
- Leafcutter Bees are solitary bees, they do not form colony as honey bees. Individual female builds her own nest in soft rotted wood, existing wood tunnels, tunnels in ground or under stone (depend on species).
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- Leafcutter Bees are important pollinators of some flower plants.
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- Leafcutter Bees have the stout body and large head. When flight, they make higher pitch and louder noise than Honey Bees.
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- They are visitors of different flowering plants. They have long tongues which allow them to reach the nectar in tubular flowers. Of course they feed on shallow flowers as well.
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- Please check the family Megachilidae page for general information about this bee.
- Reference:
- 1. Native Bees of the Sydney region, a field guide - Anne Dollin, Michael Batley, Martyn Robinson & Brian Faulkner, Australian Native Bee Research Centre. P49.
- 2. Leafcutter Bee Fact File - Wild Life of Sydney, Australian Museum 2008.
- 3. Leafcutter Bee (genus Megachile) - Aussie Bee, Australian Native Bee Research Centre, 2005
