Xylocopa aestuans explained

Xylocopa aestuans, or Xylocopa (Koptortosoma) aestuans, is a species of carpenter bee. It is widely distributed in Southeast Asia.^[1]

It is a large bee, measuring more than 20mm in length. Historically, Xylocopa pubescens has sometimes been treated as a subspecies of aestuans.^[2] The two taxa have different distributions, with X. aestuans restricted to Southeast Asia, while X. pubescens occurs throughout most of Africa and eastward as far as the entire region of South Asia. There are also very clear, but subtle differences in the morphology of females and males.

Further reading

• Ruggiero M. (project leader), Ascher J. et al. (2013). ITIS Bees: World Bee Checklist (version Sep 2009). In: Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life, 11 March 2013 (Roskov Y., Kunze T., Paglinawan L., Orrell T., Nicolson D., Culham A., Bailly N., Kirk P., Bourgoin T., Baillargeon G., Hernandez F., De Wever A., eds). Digital resource at www.catalogueoflife.org/col/. Species 2000: Reading, UK.
• Engel MS, Alqarni AS, Shebl MA, Iqbal J. & Hinojosa-Diaz IA. 2017. A new species of the carpenter bee genus Xylocopa from the Sarawat Mountains in southwestern Saudi Arabia (Hymenoptera, Apidae). Zookeys, 716: 29–41.

External links

• http://www.atlashymenoptera.net/pagetaxon.asp?tx_id=4956

Notes and References

1. Web site: Map of Xylocopa aestuans . Discover Life . 2022-08-25.
2. Warncke, K. (1976) Beitrage zur Bienenfauna des Iran. 1. Die Gattung Xylocopa Latr. Bolletino del Museo Civico di Storia Naturele di Venezia 28: 8592.