Large Garden Bumble Bee Bombus ruderatus
(c) Jorge Herreros de Lartundo, some rights reserved (CC BY)
OrderAnts, Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies (Hymenoptera)
FamilyHoney Bees, Bumble Bees, and Allies (Apidae)
GenusBumble Bees (Bombus)
Britain's largest bumblebee has a secret weapon: an exceptionally long face and tongue perfect for pollinating hard-to-reach tubed flowers that other bees can't access. This specialization made it so valuable that beekeepers commercially bred and introduced it to New Zealand and Chile—a practice that backfired when it expanded into Argentina and disrupted local ecosystems.
Today, population numbers are declining, and this impressive pollinator has been placed on the Biodiversity Action Plan to help reverse the trend.
Think you can identify this one in the wild?
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