A New Species Of Bee Was Discovered In These Two Southern States

Take a closer look the next time you water your flowers if you live in Texas or Oklahoma, because you just might find a newly identified bee species.

Scientists have announced the discovery of a new mining bee in those states and given it the name Andrena androfovea. This dark blue bee has unusual traits, like a habit of doing handstands and using its belly to rub flowers while it feeds on nectar. According to a University of Oklahoma news release, it is also the only Andrena bee that prefers flowers in the Solanaceae family, like tomatoes and nightshade plants.

“Subgenera are groups of species that are structurally similar and closely related. This new species, however, is so distantly related to any other Andrena that we think it has formed its own branch on the Andrena family tree about 12.6 million years ago,” says Silas Bossert, assistant professor at Washington State University and the study's lead author.

That's pretty amazing considering scientists have found 1,500 different Andrena bee species around the world.

So far, the new Andrena bee has been found in Texas and Oklahoma. The study authors took video footage of the fuzzy, matte blue bee and sequenced its genome.

“The process of documenting bee biodiversity started centuries ago, but scientists are still discovering new species all the time,” says James Hung, an assistant professor of biology at OU and co-author of the paper. “More needs to be done to ensure environmental protection for the different habitats, both for the species we know about and those that could be discovered in the future.”

So keep a close eye out when you're gardening or hiking through a meadow—you never know what you'll find buzzing among the flowers.

Read the original article on Southern Living