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Sticker of Chequered cuckoo bee
Bug card No. 0859 of 4,939

Chequered cuckoo bee

Thyreus caeruleopunctatus
Name means: “sky-blue spotted, in Latin”
Eats: Nectar and pollenBees and bumblebeesGardens and meadows6 legs

The chequered cuckoo bee is a stocky black bee covered in spots of pale blue hair, like a chequered pattern. It has smoky grey-brown wings and a big head. Like a cuckoo bird, it lets other bees raise its babies.

Lives in
All over mainland Australia and in southeastern New Guinea, in forests, woodlands, heaths and towns
Length
1 to 1.2 cm (0.39 to 0.47 in)
Top speed
about 22 km/h (14 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Can sting

Bees and wasps can sting! Read about stings on Venom Wiki →

What does it eat?
It drinks nectar from many kinds of flowers. Its baby eats the food that another bee packed for its own young.
For real!Photo of Chequered cuckoo bee
Picture by Heath Hunter. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Chequered cuckoo bee about 1.2 cm long (0.47 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 17 secondsmoves 510 times its own body length every second

How big is Chequered cuckoo bee compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its scientific name means sky-blue spotted in Latin.

2

The mother never builds a nest. She follows blue-banded bees to their nests and sneaks her egg in.

3

Her baby hatches first and eats the food that was meant for the other bee's baby.

4

It has a flat shield on its back that may protect it when an angry nest owner attacks.

5

In Victoria, Australia, it is an important pollinator of a wild orchid.

you asked

Most asked questions about Chequered cuckoo bee

?Why is it called a cuckoo bee?

Like a cuckoo bird, the mother lays her egg in another bee's nest, and the other bee's food feeds her baby.

?How big is the chequered cuckoo bee?

About 10 to 12 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Thyreus caeruleopunctatus
Named by
Blanchard, 1840
Group
Bees and bumblebees
Family
Apidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Thyreus caeruleopunctatus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Heath Hunter. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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