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25.01.2022 There are many blue-banded bee species and many bees with blue bands but of these species, Amegilla (Zonamegilla) cingulata is one of the most beautiful. These lovely bees are quite common along much of the east coast of Australia and are often photographed in people's gardens. Blue-banded bees are often those that introduce people to the wonderful world of native bees and so they hold a special place in many people's hearts.

23.01.2022 A fantastic info graphic for bee conservation from the wonderful scientist at Bee Aware Brisbane, ahead of world be day this coming Tuesday.

23.01.2022 To contrast my last post about 'stingless bees' here is a lovely little example of what most people would consider a stingless bee: Austroplebeia australis. These little cuties have a really wide distribution, extending from NSW's central coast all of the way up to Darwin and across to Alice Springs. That's pretty impressive for a little stingless bee! I think it's pretty hard to go past the common A. australis as one of the cutest of stingless bees in Australia - but I'd like to hear what your favourite is and why! :D

22.01.2022 Amongst all of the corona-madness I bring to you a very cool little lady. This bee is from Laura, QLD (FNQ) and appears to be a new species of Leioproctus (Zosterocolletes). "What's so cool about that?" I hear you ask. Well, if this is indeed Zosterocolletes, it's nearest relative doesn't live any further north than Brisbane! Surely then, this potentially new species would tell us a fascinating story about evolution and adaptation.

21.01.2022 My introduction to Australian native bees was a bit different than I have found most people's to be. I started out enjoying the rich species diversity that we have here in Australia and so I never really developed [many] stand-out favourites. I loved them all equally! But, some I love more equally than others and this gorgeous stingless bee is one that I've wanted to see in real life for quite a while! Oh, I'm sorry did that language confuse you? Stingless bee?! I bet you thi...nk that you know what stingless bees look like, right? Not the same as all those other native bee species, huh? Yes, I assure you, this is a stingless bee. But, I'll confess to intentionally trying to distress some of you. It is a member of the Stenotritidae (in the genus Stenotritus) and is the only bee family that's restricted to a single continent - Australia! These beauties are not terribly common or species-rich with only 21 described species; none of which can sting [as far as we know]. This lovely lady hails from far North QLD, west of Cairns likely making her Stenotritus elegantior (if ALA is to be believed), but with only one previously recorded bee from the whole family north of Rockhampton and in QLD I'm excited to find out what she really is!

20.01.2022 Who is that handsome little Homalictus? It's Homalictus tatei, a bee species that, according to publicly available data has not been found since 1912! Thankfully, I contacted our Homalictus expert in Australia, Ken Walker, who has a record of one from 1978, that's still 42 years ago, but I'll take it over 108 years. She was also found much further south that some of the available records at #Berajondo in #Queensland. So little is known about our Australian native bees and that's not going to change if we don't look out for them. Still, that's happy news for me :)

19.01.2022 An absolutely wonderful little Exoneurella eremophila. This desert-loving bee can be found foraging on roadside weeds in parts of arid Australia. So, if you're lucky enough to go on an outback adventure (after the rona madness has passed) I'd encourage you to check out those little truck stop daisies and see what life they are supporting! Our collections between Adelaide and Alice Springs represent something of a range expansion compared to what is available on the Atlas of living Australia.

19.01.2022 Read a little bit about the wonderful green carpenter bee and it's plight! Explicit edit: Neither the article nor photos are mine, this is just for those who are interested!

18.01.2022 A common difficulty when people start looking for native bees is to actually know what they look like. This tiny (~2.5 mm) black bee would almost certainly be missed by a any blooming native-bee enthusiast! Part of what I love about photographing native bees is being able to observe something so small in such extreme (12K) detail! #bee #pollinator #nature

17.01.2022 A nice little article for the aussie bee-enthusiast :)

16.01.2022 A bit of bee morphology basics for those with an interest :)

15.01.2022 Stephane De Greef and his Wildbnb project are at it again with another great infographic :D For all of you with Tobias Smith's bee ID book or Terry Houston's book, these images might be very helpful :)

12.01.2022 This handsome fellow is Reepenia bituberculata, a nomiine bee from far north Queensland. He is from one of two species of Australian native bee that are known to only forage in the dark! Note his pale complexion and large simple (on top of his head) and complex (on the sides of his head) eyes that are good indicators of low-light behaviour. You can read more in my most-recent open access publication about these low-light bees and how far we have to go to understand our bee fauna below. #bee #pollinator #photography #macro https://jhr.pensoft.net/article/57308/

11.01.2022 Now for something a little different I offered to take photos for my lab-mate, Robbie of the species that he is studying for his PhD the sleepy lizard (Tiliqua rugosa). This is one of the shots that I preferred as black and white Flinders University Robbie O'Reilly

11.01.2022 Anyone here interested in entering a great nature photo competition this year? Have a peak at the Ecological Society of Australia’s comp and consider entering a shot or two

11.01.2022 Have you guys ever wondered how I manage to capture the images that I do of really tiny things? And, have you ever wanted to learn to do the same? Well, you are in luck, I will be working with the Adelaide Botanical Gardens to host a two-day photography workshop. Over both days we will cover the basics of photography and macro photography as well as how to use several editing programs to create natural-looking and well-edited photos. See the link below to learn more :) https...://www.botanicgardens.sa.gov.au//macro-photography-ja The photo is of a cool Myrmecia pilosula from a shoot that I did earlier in the year :)

11.01.2022 My love of insects was first instilled in me by the gorgeous and hyper-diverse parasitic wasps. This lovely (green) Sycoscapter wasp is a parasitoid of the fig-pollinating wasp. But, one of my favourite things about this system is that there is also a common hyper-parasitoid (yellow) Watshamiella wasp that parasitises the Sycoscapter! The insect world is both beautiful and horrifying!

10.01.2022 A cool study, published by yours truly, on Australian bees that forage in low-light conditions!

08.01.2022 I had another post lined up for you this week, but a paper that I helped Remko Leijs (SA museum) and Katja Hoogendorn (Uni of Adelaide) put together got published today in Zookeys. A revision of the Australian teddy bear bees - Amegilla (Asaropoda), with ten new species described. After a bit over a year of my book being out I can also update one species name in the NT section - no longer is it "Undescribed Amegilla (Asaropoda) sp." it is now "Amegilla (Asaropoda) crenata"! :) https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/47375/

07.01.2022 Happy World Bee Day everyone! I couldn't let this wonderful day slip us by without sharing an adorable bee with you (while once again highlighting the issues that we have with taxonomy in Australia). Take a moment and let think about what this cute boy is - he is NOT a blue-banded bee (Apidae), but is in a completely different family (Halictidae). He is a Nomia bee - these generally ground-nesting species are really cute and colourful but I cannot confidently identify them to... species because there are no taxonomic keys! This is a problem in taxonomy (the science of describing and naming species) across many groups of fauna and flora where we cannot identify them to species, or even sometimes genus, family or worse! Thankfully, Taxonomy Australia under the Australian Academy of Science is trying to do launch an initiative to change that :D And when it comes to bees, I must once again thank Bee Aware Brisbane for their wonderful annotated key to the Australian bee genera :) #WorldBeeDay https://www.taxonomyaustralia.org.au

07.01.2022 Mellitidia tomentifera is the only species in this small genus that is found in Australia. These gorgeous bees are common in parts of Far North QLD and are easily seen foraging right in the middle of many cities and towns! I have just returned from ~2.5 months of field work between Fiji and FNQ, once again looking at bee diversity. Hopefully from now on I will be a bit more regular in my posts, even if they are still slow

05.01.2022 For those who have already expressed interest in my upcoming workshop it has now been postponed amid the covid-19 madness. But, never fear, the show will still go on just later in the year! In the mean time I will endeavour to actually put up some content for you all to enjoy - believe it or not I am frequently working on photos. It's finishing and writing something about them that I have an issue with ;) Stay safe all and if you're looking for some social-distancing activit...ies, may I suggest a good-old-fashioned look in your garden for native bees? it is nice and warm down here in Adelaide and there are few gums flowering around the city! https://www.botanicgardens.sa.gov.au//macro-photography-ja

04.01.2022 I have come across this cool story-telling initiative and would like to share it in case anyone that follows me is interested in sharing. What a great idea! https://www.extinctionstories.org/2020//28/competition2020/

03.01.2022 I have finally bitten the bullet and bought a different stacking program. Not because it makes better stacks (I think Zerene is the best program for me) but, because Helicon focus can 3D depth-map and produce some really cool files! This is Hylaeus (Analastoroides) foveatus in 3D glory from 2D image stacks! EDIT: I want this for science ;)

03.01.2022 Another slizzard for you all, this time a gidgee skink (Egernia stokesii)! These guys like to hide in rock crevices and use their very spiky scales to avoid getting pulled out by predators. I think that they're super cute

01.01.2022 Three years in the making, our paper examining how Fiji has acquired so many Homalictus species is published in proceedings B, for those of you with an interest :) Perhaps my favourite quote from the paper is: "Indeed, if Darwin had studied these Fijian bees instead of Galapagos finches, he might have come to rather different conclusions about the origin of species." Photo is of the recently described Homalictus groomi - named in honour of Scott V.C. Groom, who kicked off muc...h of our research into Pacific bees! Article here - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/d/10.1098/rspb.2020.0045 Thanks to all authors, including: Scott Groom, Liv Davies, Celina Rebola, Elisha Freedman and Cale Matthews See more