Red-tailed stingless bee
Trigona fulviventris
It is a clever bee that can remember when and where food will appear.
Lives in
Mexico, Central America and Colombia, in tropical forests
Length
5 to 6.5 mm (0.2 to 0.26 in)
What does it eat?
It mostly eats pollen and nectar from many kinds of flowers. Sometimes it also nibbles on fungi and even dead animals.
How big is it?
How long is it?
💅small enough to sit on your fingernail⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 24 seconds⚡moves 680 times its own body length every second
How big is Red-tailed stingless 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)
Red-tailed stingless bee about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
When it learns that food appears at a certain time and place, it can show up half an hour early and wait.
2
It builds its nest in the ground, often near the roots of big trees, and sometimes in cracks in walls.
3
Inside the nest it keeps pollen and nectar in little pots about 1 centimetre wide.
4
It is one of the biggest bees in its group, but it is still only about 6 millimetres long.
5
To find a new home, worker bees mark good spots on tree trunks with smelly scent trails.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Trigona fulviventris
- Named by
- Guérin-Méneville, 1845
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
Where the facts come from
- Trigona fulviventris (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 Don Loarie. CC BY 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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