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Sticker of Calliopsis cuckoo nomad bee
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Calliopsis cuckoo nomad bee

Holcopasites calliopsidis

The Calliopsis cuckoo nomad bee is a tiny bee from North America, only about half a centimetre long. It is a cuckoo bee: like a cuckoo bird, it sneaks its eggs into another bee's nest. The other bee's food then feeds the cuckoo bee's baby.

Lives in
North America, from Mexico to Canada
Length
5 to 6 mm (0.2 to 0.24 in)
Top speed
about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)
Flying, estimate
What does it eat?
The grown-ups drink nectar from flowers. The babies eat the food that another kind of bee stored for its own young.
For real!Photo of Calliopsis cuckoo nomad bee
Picture by USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Calliopsis cuckoo nomad bee about 6 mm long (0.24 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould fly across a whole football pitch in 24 secondsmoves 740 times its own body length every second

How big is Calliopsis cuckoo nomad bee compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It lays its eggs in the nests of a small bee called Calliopsis andreniformis, which gives it its name.

2

Cuckoo bees do not collect pollen for their babies. They let other bees do the work.

3

There are two kinds of it, called subspecies.

you asked

Most asked questions about Calliopsis cuckoo nomad bee

?What is a cuckoo bee?

A bee that lays its eggs in another bee's nest, so the other bee's food feeds its babies.

?How big is the Calliopsis cuckoo nomad bee?

Only about 5 to 6 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Holcopasites calliopsidis
Named by
Linsley, 1943
Group
Bees and bumblebees
Family
Apidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Holcopasites calliopsidis (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 USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab. CC BY 2.0, 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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