Franklin's bumblebee (''Bombus franklini'') is known to be one of the most narrowly distributed bumblebee species, making it a critically endangered

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 monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...

of the western United States. It is known only from a area in southern

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

and northern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, between the Coast and Sierra-Cascade mountain ranges. It was last seen in 2006. Franklin's bumblebee is known to collect nectar and pollen from several wildflowers, such as

lupin ''Lupinus'', commonly known as lupin, lupine, or regionally bluebonnet etc., is a genus of plants in the legume family Fabaceae. The genus includes over 199 species, with centers of diversity in North and South America. Smaller centers occur ...

e, California poppy, and horsemint, which causes it to be classified as a generalist forager.

Description

Franklin's bumblebee is distinguished from other bumblebees by a solid black abdomen, with yellow anteriorly on the thorax in a U-shaped pattern. Females have black hair on their faces and the vertices, with some light hairs mixed above and below their antennal bases, while most similar bumblebee species have yellow.Bumble bees: Franklin’s bumble bee (''Bombus franklini'').
Xerces Society. Males of this species are similar except their malar spaces are as long as wide, the hair on males' faces is yellow, and tergum 6 has some pale hairs laterally.

Conservation

The population of this bumblebee species has decreased drastically since 1998, with last sighting in Oregon, in 2006. Some sources say this species is already extinct, but until more concrete evidence is shown, it has been assigned a conservation status rank of G1, which is critically imperiled. A petition was submitted by the Xerces society, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Center for Food Safety to the California Fish and Game Commission in October 2018 to list ''Bombus franklini'' and three others as endangered under the

California Endangered Species Act In 1970 California became one of the first states in the U.S. to implement an act that conserves and protects endangered species and their environments. The California Endangered Species Act (CESA) declares that "all native species of fishes, amph ...

.Hatfield R, Jepsen S, Jordan SF, Blackburn M and Code A. 2018. ''A Petition to the State of California Fish and Game Commission.'' https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=161902&inlineCalifornia Department of Fish and Wildlife. 2019. ''EVALUATION OF THE PETITION FROM THE XERCES SOCIETY, DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE, AND THE CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY TO LIST FOUR SPECIES OF BUMBLE BEES AS ENDANGERED UNDER THE CALIFORNIA ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT.'' https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=166804&inline The California Department of Fish and Wildlife evaluated this petition in a report for the California Fish and Game Commission completed in April 2019. On June 12, 2019 the California Fish and Game Commission voted to add all four bumblebees, including ''Bombus franklini'', to the list of protected species under the California Endangered Species Act.Weiland P. 2019. ''Fish and Game Commission Adds Four Bumble Bees to Candidate List.'' Endangered Species Law and Policy. https://www.endangeredspecieslawandpolicy.com/fish-and-game-commission-adds-four-bumble-bees-to-candidate-list A subsequent legal challenge of the CESA's definition of a fish as "a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals" was eventually overruled, because the explicit intent was for all invertebrates (therefore including insects) to be qualified for protection under this legal definition.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q2264002 Bumblebees Hymenoptera of North America Endemic fauna of the United States Insects of the United States Fauna of California Natural history of Oregon Critically endangered fauna of the United States Critically endangered fauna of California Insects described in 1921