Dawson's burrowing bee
Dawson's burrowing bee is one of the biggest bees in Australia, fat and furry with dark wings. The boys are brown, and the girls have white fur on their heads and backs. Thousands of them dig their nests side by side in the hard, dry clay of the desert.
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Fun facts
The mother digs straight down 15 to 35 centimetres into hard clay, then sideways to make rooms for her babies.
There are big boys that fight each other, and small boys that wait at the edges for a girl who flies past.
When there is not enough rain for flowers, the bees move north or south to find a better place to nest.
Most asked questions about Dawson's burrowing bee
?How big is Dawson's burrowing bee?
It grows up to 23 millimetres long, with wings 45 millimetres across. It is one of Australia's biggest bees.
?Does Dawson's burrowing bee live in a hive?
No. Each female digs her own burrow, but thousands nest close together.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Amegilla dawsoni
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Amegilla dawsoni (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 Sarah McCaffrey, Museum Victoria. CC BY 3.0 au, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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