''Anthemurgus passiflorae'' (the passionflower bee) is a small (7.5-8.5 mm long), black, bee that occurs from central Texas to North Carolina and north to Illinois. Females of this

solitary bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfami ...

use collected nectar and pollen to feed larvae located in nests constructed in the ground (through

mass provisioning Mass provisioning is a form of parental investment in which an adult insect, most commonly a hymenopteran such as a bee or wasp, stocks all the food for each of her offspring in a small chamber (a "cell") before she lays the egg. This behavior i ...

). This uncommon bee is unusual for two reasons: first, the only known pollen host is a single species—the yellow passionflower (''

Passiflora lutea ''Passiflora lutea'', commonly known as yellow passionflower, is a flowering perennial vine in the family Passifloraceae, native to the central and eastern United States. The vine has three-lobed leaves and small, yellowish-green, fringed flowers ...

'') (such specialization is called

oligolecty The term oligolecty is used in pollination ecology to refer to bees that exhibit a narrow, specialized preference for pollen sources, typically to a single family or genus of flowering plants. The preference may occasionally extend broadly to mult ...

); second, because of its size and foraging habits, the passionflower bee is thought to contribute little or nothing toward the pollination of its host plant. Female bees remove pollen from ''P. lutea'' by suspending themselves under an

anther The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filam ...

and scraping the pollen out with open mandibles. This unique position of pollen collection almost never results in pollination as the female bee rarely touches the stigma. The genus ''Anthemurgus'' contains only the passionflower bee and thus is a

monotypic taxon In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

, though some recent authorities treat ''Anthemurgus'' as a monotypic subgenus within the genus ''

Pseudopanurgus ''Pseudopanurgus'' is a genus of mining bees in the family Andrenidae The Andrenidae (commonly known as mining bees) are a large, nearly cosmopolitan family of solitary, ground-nesting bees. Most of the family's diversity is located in tempe ...

'' (e.g.ITIS
/ref>).

References

External links

Schappert, Phil. The passionflower bee in the Lost Pines. Lost Pines Nature Notes, Number 57.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2363296 Andrenidae Insects of the United States Monotypic bee genera