Megachile pluto

Megachile pluto

Megachile pluto (synonym Chalicodoma pluto ) is a species of the genus Megachile ( Leaf-cutter - and-mortar bees) from the order of Hymenoptera. The after their discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace as Wallace 's Giant Bee ( Wallace giant bee) designated bee is the largest bee in the world.

Features

The females have a very intense black color and have a body length of more than 23 mm. The largest discovered specimens reached 39 mm and a wing span of up to 63 mm. Its massive head is rather wider than the thorax with 13 mm and bears large protruding mandibles tridentate at the end. The face plate is tridentate and glossy black. The labrum is enlarged and filled with thinly scattered erect rigid hairs. The thorax is densely covered with black short hair. The wings are brownish and shiny. The legs are strong, the tibia very robust. The abdomen is covered with short black top, bottom with adjacent rigid hairs.

The body length of the males is 18 to 23 mm.

Dissemination

Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859 was a single female specimen on the island of Bacan in the northern part of the Moluccas. It was only discovered in 1981, the American biologist Adam knife on the Bacan islands total of six nests. The rare bees were not known to the locals.

Way of life

All discovered nests were located within inhabited termite nests of the genus Microcerotermes who had invested in these branches and trunks of trees. Each nest was shared by up to six females. Made of wood fibers and resin animals build a vertical main tube into the termite nest from which they invest brood cells and a horizontal access tube. The resin - wood fiber mixture hardens to a black waterproof material that denied the termites access to the bee's nest. The resin win the females by scratching with the tips of their large mandibles small chunks of the trees, which they then form by scraping with the labrum into balls and 10 mm diameter.

In the largest encountered by Adam diameter nest were 25 of 157 brood cells in use. The cells used have a pungent resinous odor, which is lost during curing of the material. The bees cover the cells several times with new layers of aromatic resin wings of fruit plants. The animals may use the fungicidal properties of the resin to protect their nests against entrained with pollen spores.