''Coelioxys rufitarsis'', common name red-legged cuckoo leafcutter bee, is a species of
bee in the family
Megachilidae
Megachilidae is a cosmopolitan family of mostly solitary bees. Both that their pollen-carrying structure (called a ''scopa'') is restricted to the ventral surface of the abdomen (rather than mostly or exclusively on the hind legs as in other b ...
. It is native to North America.
[Mitchell, T.B. 1962]
Bees of the Eastern United States.
North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Technical Bulletin No. 152. Accessed through discoverlife.org on 11 August 2017.
This
cuckoo bee
The term cuckoo bee is used for a variety of different bee lineages which have evolved the kleptoparasitism, kleptoparasitic behaviour of laying their eggs in the nests of other bees, reminiscent of the behavior of cuckoo birds. The name is perhap ...
parasitizes the nests of several other bee species, including ''
Megachile latimanus'', ''
M. melanophoea'',
[ and '' M. perihirta''.Cuckoo Bees.]
UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab.
References
rufit
Hymenoptera of North America
Insects of Canada
Insects of the United States
Insects described in 1854
{{Megachilidae-stub