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Xylocopa hottentotta Smith

(Life: Kingdom: Metazoa (animals); Phylum: Arthropoda; Class: Hexapoda; Order: Hymenoptera; Superfamily: Apoidea; Family: Apidae; Subfamily: Xylocopinae; Subfamily: Xylocopini; Genus: Xylocopa)

Xylocopa hottentotta Smith, 1854. Lectotype in London (NHMUK). Type locality: South Africa.

Xylocopa carinata Smith, 1874. Syntypes in London (NHMUK). Type locality:  Angola, Ethiopia.

Xylocopa fimbriatopilosa Enderlein, 1903. Syntypes in Berlin (ZMHB). Type locality: Somalia.

Xylocopa flavilabris Smith, 1874. Types in London (NHMUK). Type locality: South Africa.

Xylocopa fraterna Vachal, 1899. Holotype in Brussels (IRSNB). Type locality: Mozambique.

Xylocopa natalensis Vachal, 1899. Syntypes (MNHN). Type locality:  South Africa, Kenya.

Xylocopa producta Smith, 1874. Holotype in London (NHMUK). Type locality: Angola.

Xylocopa tarsata Smith, 1854. Holotype in Oxford (OXUM). Type locality: South Africa.

Xylocopa vumbensis Cockerell, 1933. Syntypes in London (NHMUK). Type locality: Zimbabwe

Distribution

Angola, Cameroun, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, ogo, Uganda, Zimbabwe.

Biology

Carpenter bees bore tunnels into wood to construct a nest, which they provision with a mixture of pollen and nectar sculptured into an elongate shape. This acts as a food source for their developing larvae. A number of partitions (each containing a single larva) may be constructed within the tunnel, the partitions are made out of chewed wood.

Recorded on flowers of: Adenolobus pechuelii, Aloe sp., Grewia occidentalis, Monechma mollissimum, Monechma sp., Ocimum americanum, Plectranthus sp., Polygala sp. Nests in: Dombeya sp., Philippia sp., Pinus patula, Podocarpus gracilior, Strelitzia nicolai, Widdringtonia sp. Parasite: Physocephala bimarginipennis (Eardley & Urban, 2010).

References

Eardley, C.D. 1983. A taxonomic revision of the genus Xylocopa Latreille (Hymenoptera: Anthophoridae) in southern Africa. Entomology Memoir, Department of Agriculture, Republic of South Africa 58: 67pp.

Eardley, C & Urban, R. 2010. Catalogue of Afrotropical bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Apiformes). Zootaxa 2455: 1-548.

Michener, C.D. 2000. The Bees of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press. 953 pp.

Credits

Photographs of specimens in SAMC © Iziko Museums of South Africa.

Map illustration © Simon van Noort (Iziko Museums of South Africa).

Web author Simon van Noort (Iziko South African Museum)

 

Citation: van Noort, S. 2025. WaspWeb: Hymenoptera of the World. URL: www.waspweb.org (accessed on <day/month/year>).

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