A male buck bee trapped in a field of alfalfa plants in Burgenland seemed quite unusual to the discoverer and his colleagues at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (Boku) Vienna.
After more precise identification by the Natural History Museum (NHM) Vienna, the insect turned out to be a representative of the species Eucera vulpes. Based on its scientific name, the insect can be called a fox longhorn bee, Boku said.
The bee species is actually mainly found in the Mediterranean region: “Southern European bee species are increasingly moving north due to the climatic conditions that are becoming more favorable to them. The first evidence for Austria often occurs in the east of the country,” says zoologist Sophie Kratschmer in a Boku broadcast.
The females of the species were observed in Sicily visiting flowers on daisy families and rough-leaved plants. Due to a lack of field observations, it is still unclear which plants in Austria are visited by female Eucera vulpes to collect pollen and nectar.
Source: Krone
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