samwilhelm's Favorites

This is a large (15 mm) female Andrena found feeding on farkleberry (Vaccinium arboreum) growing near a wooded area north of Gainesville. The remarkable things about this bee are its size, black wings and intensely orange color. Its legs (except for the coxae and trochanters) are orange-red, and bright orange hairs cover much of the head, thorax and legs. This female was found together with the male bee shown here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/207778469

I have seen this species in three different locations of Alachua County during April 2014. The University of Florida bee key notes that Andrena obscuripennis has been found previously in Alachua County: the Bee Library records specimens at the University of Florida from Alachua Co. dated 1995-1997, and 1949. (See https://library.big-bee.net/portal/collections/list.php?usethes=1&taxa=4966). Bouseman & LaBerge (1978) wrote that Andrena obscuripennis was initially known only from Georgia and North Carolina, but noted that Mitchell (1960) provisionally included New Jersey and Louisiana in its range. The species has since been documented in places as widely dispersed as Mississippi, Missouri and Ontario.

This female keys to Andrena gardineri in Mitchell (1960) and LaBerge (1967); also, to Callandrena in LaBerge (1985)’s subgeneric key. A tad early for this bee, but iNaturalist observations at this site show Packera is well into bloom by now.

Selection of initial characters in Discoverlife also leads to A. gardineri, A. hirticincta, A. rubi, and A. rudbeckiae; it cannot be the latter 3 for numerous reasons, especially the flight season and facial characters.

I attempted to photograph the bidentate labral process, hyaline tergal rims, among other key cool features of this bee.

Population was briefly monitored over several weeks while conducting another pollinator study in the habitat. Oak pollen isn't considered nutritious in most literature, but must be useful to some degree. As the Quercus inopina pollen became available, there was stiff competition between females for the best catkins on the tree. Resources are limited at this site, which was xeric scrub.

Visiting Persicaria along the margin of a small lake.

I suspect this is the correct identification, but hope someone will correct or verify.

This or another individual was seen about 5 minutes before this sighting at a nearby stretch of the same lake shore; see https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/195196320.

Seen on a field trip to Osteen Hammock led by Lydia Cuni for the Dade Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society. It was a great group of participants and we had a great time learning about pine rockland and hammock plants thanks to Lydia! For more info about field trips like this, keep an eye on the Dade Chapter's calendar here: https://dade.fnpschapters.org/events/

Their events are almost always free and open to the public. Joining is a great way to support this awesome organization :-)

All observations we posted from this area today:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=25.40723688179574&nelng=-80.62274759420741&on=2022-04-16&order=asc&order_by=observed_on&place_id=any&swlat=25.38591445714166&swlng=-80.64577882982174

In addition to the main spider photo, I've added more, showing where there were hundreds of thee spiders in their orb webs. There's a "scene" photo, in the middle of which you can see the main lit informational kiosk where there had to be something around 80 webs, most of which were these (including this spider). The whole structure to its left was also covered in webs - some even inside that vending machine, which contains fishing tackle, not snacks. They were around back, all the way around that stuff. That tree to the right was a veritable apartment building of webs, and I've added a screencap of a video I took showing that. They were on the signs and Dasani machine, and then you see the railings of the dock there - they were in between each upright, often multiple webs, and I included photos of that, too. There was another dock that had the same situation. On the far side of the parking lot is a fish processing station? Kind of a small roofed structure with counters, a wooden deck with railings, and three or four sets of bleachers. These spiders were in the deck railings and all over the bleachers as well.

This observation is for the individual in the first photo. All these photos are of Andrena in the same patch of Phacelia dubia, but the photos may include multiple individuals. A number of individuals were collected.