Paracolletes, m, australia, face

Paracolletes species, On and Off Bee, specimen collected in AustraliaThis species is unusually sexually dimorphic in color. The males are quite bright, as can be seen here, the females are what might be called the "null hypothesis" for bee coloration "“ brownish grey on the head and thorax with a black abdomen with white transverse hair bands. They are very fast flying bees. Laurence caught a series of males as they flew rapidly from the beautiful flowers of Grevillea in Western Australia. These flowers contain so much nectar that after a couple of attempts the net became sticky. The males were searching for females which seemed much less common. Indeed, Laurence caught only two of them, and, to his embarrassment, let one of them go when it stung him. 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.