Leafcutter Bee: Megachile chrysopyga

Leafcutter Bee
Megachile chrysopyga

Leafcutter Bee at work!
Notice the neat circular cuttings on the leaves

Location: Bunbury, Western Australia

Season: Summer, December

Order: Hymenoptera 

Family: Megachilidae 

Genus: Megachile 

Megachile chrysopyga

Leafcutter Bees belong to Megachilidae, a family of Australian Native Bees. The one found in my garden is M. chrysopyga. It is black in colour and relatively hairless. The circular white markings on the abdomen is prominent. The tip of the abdomen is golden yellow and the ventral side of the abdomen is pale yellow. There is a tuft of golden yellow hair on its head around the antennae. The golden colour shines brilliantly in the sunlight.

Leafcutter bees are solitary bees and don't live in groups. The female forms a 'lodge' in which she lays her egg and feeds her larva with nectar and pollen that she collects underside of her abdomen. She cuts leaves to line her nests. It is a spectacle to watch these bees at work. They quickly cut precise circles out of the leaves using their strong mouth parts. They carry the cut leaf, one at a time into their nests. They make little 'flying carpets' out of the cut leaves and fly away with them as if they are sitting on the leaf!

Reference: Aussie bee

Blue Banded Bee: Amegilla cingulata

Blue Banded Bee: Amegilla cingulata
in flight

Blue Banded Bee: Amegilla cingulata
in flight

Location: South West, Western Australia

Season: Summer, December/January

Order: Hymenoptera 

Family: Apidae 

Tribe: Anthophorini 

Genus: Amegilla 

Amegilla cingulata

Blue Banded Bee is an iconic Australian Native Bee. It is easily identified by the pale blue bands on the abdomen. The thorax is covered in golden hairs. They have large eyes which are milky green. They can sting but not aggressive. The males have 5 complete bands on their abdomen, while females have 4 complete bands. Unlike other bees, these are solitary bees: they don't have queen, workers, drones, they don't live in hives or in a colony. The males 'roost' together on plants while females collect pollen and dig burrows to rest in them. When the female lays her egg, she stores it in a single nest cell with pollen and nectar to feed the larva. The larva emerges as adult in warm weather. 

They dart and hover in flight with buzzing which gets more intense as it approaches an object.

They are attracted to blue coloured objects. I have witnessed a Blue Banded Bee repeatedly hover around and investigate a piece of blue plastic lying in the garden. This great photo opp was missed by the lack of a camera at hand. They are attracted to flowers of other colours too.

The importance of these native bees for crops is the way in which they pollinate the flowers. These bees, in order to obtain pollen from the flowers, buzz very close to the flower. The resonant vibration dislodges the pollen. This is called Buzz Pollination. It is very effective in crops of solanacae family like tomatoes. 

This bee's predators are cuckoo bees and man in the form of urban development and loss of habitat. Some people build 'Bee Hotels' providing a place for the bees to rest and have the cell nests. The European Bee which is not native to Australia is a stronger forager than the native bee which could cause competition in small areas with less food.

Female digging a burrow
note the 5th ring on the abdomen is incomplete

Male Bees Roosting. One of them is of a different species which makes me think it is a Teddy Bear Bee.

Reference: Australian Museum

Aussie Bee 

Info on Native Bees

Jewel Wasp Or The Emerald Cockroach Wasp

Jewel Wasp or Emerald Cockroach Wasp

Jewel Wasp or Emerald Cockroach Wasp

What a beautiful creature! The metallic blue green body with contrasting orange colour of the 2nd and 3rd thighs! It flies with shimmering wings and when it sits, its antennae dance! It is the Jewel Wasp or the Emerald Cockroach Wasp.

Location: India

Season: Winter, November

Order: Hymenoptera

Suborder: Apocrita 

Superfamily: Apoidea 

Family: Ampulicidae 

Ampulex compressa

More interesting than the external appearance is the behaviour of the wasp. Unlike most wasps which paralyse and eat their prey, the Jewel Wasp paralyses a cockroach and then puts it into a daze in order for its offsprings to grow inside of the cockroach. The wasp uses its neurotoxin rich venom to sting the cockroach twice, both at surgical precision. The twice stung cockroach readily gets the eggs laid in its body, becomes a living meal for the new born larva. How it paralyses the cockroach is a marvel. 

 The female wasp when ready to lay eggs, flies around looking for cockroaches. She sneaks up on an unsuspecting cockroach and subdues it by holding it with her jaws. With one precise sting, she injects venom into the prothoracic ganglion. The venom causes paralysis of the front legs of the cockroach (due to a post synaptic block at the octopaminergic neurons). Once the cockroach is paralysed, the wasp injects her second dose of venom into the cockroaches head, by piercing the cockroach's exoskeleton with her stinger, precisely locating the ganglion in the nervous system and injecting the venom into it. This second sting controls the mind of the cockroach. The head sting induces first 30 min of intense grooming (due to dopamine in the poison), followed by hypokinesia during which the cockroach is unable to generate an 'escape response'. The cockroach now becomes a puppet in the hands of the wasp. The cockroach also looses less water, consumes less oxygen and survives longer. The wasp leads the cockroach to her burrow, by dragging the whole live but paralysed and mind controlled cockroach which is much larger than the wasp herself. The wasp lays a single egg onto the abdomen of the cockroach. She then blocks the burrow to contain the cockroach inside. The mesmerised cockroach does not resist any of this.

The egg hatches into a larva, which chews its way into the cockroach's abdominal cavity and becomes an endoparasitoid. The wasp's larval development, from egg laying to pupation, lasts about 8 days during which the cockroach must remain alive but immobile. The larva thrives by feeding on the cockroach from inside. The larva produces an antibiotic substance to keep the cockroach's insides clean and free from microbial organisms that reside within. The adult hatches out of the by then dead cockroach. 

This chance spotting of the beautiful wasp has taught me a lot!

References:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arch.20092/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/neu.20254/abstract
http://www.bgu.ac.il/life/Faculty/Libersat/pdf/JCP.2003.pdf
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/07/if-youre-going-to-live-inside-a-zombie-keep-it-clean/