In the fall most of the BFS is brown and sere until the rains come, but a few species of plants bloom profusely at this seemingly inauspicious time. One of these is Pine-Bush, Ericameria pinifolia – the shrubs with bright yellow flowers dotting the landscape now. A few weeks ago Harsi Parker and I spotted and photographed a tiny bee on Pine-Bush, and I passed the photo and information along to our go-to bee guy, Hartmut Wisch, who came out a week ago to take more photos — this is one of his:
Perdita ericameriae nectaring on a Pine-Bush flower. Photo by Hartmut Wisch.
Consultation with Doug Yanega at UC Riverside revealed this tiny bee to be Perdita ericameriae. Although it’s tiny – only 6 mm (about 1/4 inch) long, it’s quite striking with its green eyes and black-and-white striped abdomen. As you might guess from the name, it specializes on Pine-Bush. P. ericameriae has only been found in Los Angeles and Riverside counties, and very little is known about its biology; apart from the species description I have not been able to find any scientific publications on this little bee.
Not only is P. ericameriae a new addition to the BFS Invert List, but the photos we took and posted to BugGuide.net were their first of this species, and, in fact, they’re the first photos of P. ericameriae anywhere on the worldwide web.