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Sticker of Shining oil-digger bee
Bug card No. 3810 of 4,939

Shining oil-digger bee

Centris nitida

The shining oil-digger bee is a wild bee from Central America. Oil-digger bees are known for collecting oil from certain flowers, not just nectar and pollen. This one has also moved to Florida in the United States.

Lives in
Central America, and now also Florida
Top speed
about 22 km/h (14 mph)
Flying, estimate
What does it eat?
It drinks nectar and collects pollen and flower oils to feed its young.
For real!Photo of Shining oil-digger bee
Picture by USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville, Maryland, USA. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It has been brought to Florida, and now it lives there too.

2

Scientists split it into two kinds, called subspecies.

3

It belongs to a group of bees that can collect oil from flowers.

you asked

Most asked questions about Shining oil-digger bee

?Where does the shining oil-digger bee live?

In Central America, and it has also been brought to Florida.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Centris nitida
Group
Bees and bumblebees
Family
Apidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Centris nitida (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 from Beltsville, Maryland, USA. Public domain, 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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