Cuckoo Bumble Bees Lat. “Psithyrus“
Cuckoo bumblebees are members of the subgenus Psithyrus in the bumblebee genus Bombus. Until recently, the 29 species of Psithyrus were considered to constitute a separate genus. They are a specialized lineage which has lost the ability to collect pollen and to rear their brood. They have lost the worker caste and produce only sexuals, male and female. They are inquilines in the colonies of other bumblebees. Before finding and invading a host colony, a Psithyrus…
Selected species
Bombus ashtoni Bombus barbutellus Bombus bellardii Bombus bohemicus Bombus branickii Bombus campestris Bombus chinensis Bombus citrinus Bombus coreanus Bombus cornutus Bombus expolitus Bombus fernaldae Bombus ferganicus Bombus flavidus Bombus insularis Bombus morawitzianus Bombus norvegicus Bombus quadricolor Bombus rupestris Bombus skorikovi Bombus suckleyi Bombus sylvestris Bombus tibetanus Bombus turneri Bombus variabilis Bombus vestalis
Further reading
Michener, C.D. (2000). The Bees of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press. Macdonald, M. & Nisbet, G. (2006). Highland Bumblebees: Distribution, Ecology and Conservation. HBRG, Inverness, http://www.hbrg.org.uk. ISBN 0-9552211-0-2.
Ancestry Graph
Further Information
„Cuckoo Bumble Bees“ on wikipedia.org
„Cuckoo Bumble Bees“ on iNaturalist.org
Copyright
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Psithyrus the free encyclopedia Wikipedia which is released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License). On Wikipedia a list of authors is available.
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