Osmia simillima, face

A somewhat big and somewhat northern Osmia. One of the frustrating things about bees is that entire groups look about the same, such is Osmia. In this case we see things like an expanded front basitarsis with long sigmoid hairs and several other small differences that add up to this species, these puzzles can be fun or frustrating, but it takes time to learn to play the game. .... Really though, it is a lot of fun, and important work, you should get a microscope and try it, citizen, better than looking at television all night. Specimen captured in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Stack shot by Dejen Mengis. On the face shot note the confusion in the stacking process around the antennae...this can be taken care of in zerene stacker, but we didn't bother because we mostly are in production mode. 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.