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Megachile species, m, south africa, kruger, side

Detailed Description

Kruger Park! South Africa! This is the first specimen we have put up from our recent trip to survey bees in Kruger. At this point I am incompetent to tell the species apart (there are no field guides to bees Citizen), but I can tell you this is a Megachile in what appears to be the subgenus Eutricharaea. This group can be fairly "weedy" showing up in urban / disturbed area with some members forming a common set of species that have invaded continents around the world. In any case, this species is almost certainly native to the region and our hope is that with time we can put species names on such things. We will likely take a little DNA from them too. About 2/3rds the size of a honey bee. 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.

Sources/Usage

Public Domain.