Splay-footed carpenter
Xylocopa valga
The splay-footed carpenter is a big carpenter bee with a black and blue body covered in purple hairs. Even its wings shine purple. It is called a carpenter because it chews tunnels in wood to make its nest.
Lives in
Western, central and southern Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Central Asia and Mongolia
Length
2 to 2.7 cm (0.79 to 1.1 in)
What does it eat?
It drinks nectar and collects pollen from flowers.
How big is it?
How long is it?
πas long as 4 grains of rice in a rowβ½could fly across a whole football pitch in 11 secondsβ‘moves 340 times its own body length every second
How big is Splay-footed carpenter 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)
Splay-footed carpenter about 33 km/h (21 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It gnaws its nest holes into the trunks of dead trees and into old wooden buildings and fences.
2
It is a solitary bee, so each female makes her own nest without a hive.
3
It lives both in forests and in towns.
4
It has died out in Latvia and Lithuania.
you asked
Most asked questions about Splay-footed carpenter
?How big is the splay-footed carpenter bee?
It is about 20 to 27 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Xylocopa valga
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Xylocopa valga (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 Hugues Mouret. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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