Vulture bee

Vulture bee

Taxobox
name = Vulture bee
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
ordo = Hymenoptera
subordo = Apocrita
superfamilia = Apoidea
familia = Apidae
subfamilia = Apinae
tribus = Meliponini
genus = "Trigona"
subgenus = "(Trigona)"
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision = three species; see text

Vulture bees are a small group of three closely-related American stingless bee species in the genus "Trigona" which feed on rotting meat rather than pollen or nectar. These are the only known bees which do not rely on plant products for food. This unusual behavior was only discovered in 1982, nearly two centuries after the bees were first classified.The three species in this group are:

"Trigona crassipes" (Fabricius, 1793)

"Trigona hypogea hypogea" Silvestri, 1902 and "Trigona hypogea robustior" Schwarz, 1948 (two subspecies within "T. hypogea")

"Trigona necrophaga" Camargo & Roubik, 1991

References

* Roubik, D.W. 1982. Obligate necrophagy in a social bee. Science 217: 1059-1060.
* Camargo, J.M.F. & Roubik, D.W. 1991. Systematics and bionomics of the apoid obligate necrophages: the "Trigona hypogea" group. Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society 44: 13-39.

ources

*http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1590/is_1_61/ai_n9510935


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