Horse-fly carpenter bee
Xylocopa tabaniformis
The horse-fly carpenter bee is a black bee that looks a bit like a horse fly. The males have yellow hair on their chest. Like other carpenter bees, it makes its nest in wood.
Lives in
North, Central and South America
Length
1.2 to 1.8 cm (0.47 to 0.71 in)
What does it eat?
Like other bees, it visits flowers for nectar and pollen.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚as long as 3 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 14 seconds⚡moves 420 times its own body length every second
How big is Horse-fly carpenter bee compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
Horse-fly carpenter bee about 27 km/h (17 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
There are 10 different kinds of it living in different places.
2
Only the males have yellow hair on the chest; the females are all black.
3
It is between 1.2 and 1.8 centimetres long.
you asked
Most asked questions about Horse-fly carpenter bee
?Why is it called the horse-fly carpenter bee?
Because it looks a bit like a horse fly, and like other carpenter bees it nests in wood.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Xylocopa tabaniformis
- Named by
- Smith, 1854
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
- Also known as
- Horsefly-like carpenter bee, Mountain carpenter bee
Where the facts come from
- Xylocopa tabaniformis (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 Eugene Zelenko. 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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