Colletes validus, f, face, Providence Co., RI

A blueberry specialist. Look how long that face is...The space between the mandible and the eye is what bee heads often use to separate species. This Colletes validus has a huggggggeeee malar space...other Colletes species essentially have none, the mandible being directly at the base of the eye. Why? Likely because the only flower this species regularly visits for pollen is Vaccinium...the blueberries. They have a very deep tube like corolla and this face help them get in there for nectar, particularly important given their short tongues. Collected by Zach Scott during a study of .... blueberry pollination in Rhode Island. Picture by Kelly Graninger. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.