Cloudy masked bee
The cloudy masked bee is a small, slim bee from Australia. It has a bright yellow patch on its back, like a little badge. Instead of digging its own nest, it moves into the old empty mud nests of wasps.
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Fun facts
It lives alone, not in a big hive like honeybees.
It likes to nest in the old mud nests left behind by mud-dauber wasps and potter wasps.
It visits many Australian flowers, including gum trees, wattles and grass trees.
It was first described in 1853 by an English insect expert, Frederick Smith.
Most asked questions about Cloudy masked bee
?Where does the cloudy masked bee live?
In southern and eastern Australia, including Tasmania, and in Papua New Guinea.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Hylaeus nubilosus
- Named by
- Smith, 1853
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Colletidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Colletidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Hylaeus nubilosus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville, Maryland, USA. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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