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Tropical Carpenter Bee
Xylocopa latipes
3.23661, 101.741
Field Notes
Description:
Spotted this on top of a rocky mountain ridge 300m high. Pretty dry and arid place but these bumblebees (we grew up calling) seem to enjoy the windy top of the mountain buzzing from one branch to another. There about 3 different ones up here.
Habitat:
In Malaysia, tropical carpenter bees often choose useful structural woods as nesting sites, as they are able to burrow through it with their powerful mandibles. Tropical carpenter bees construct multiple galleries (3 - 5) of about 11cm in length and 2.1 - 2.3 cm in diameter.[4]
Tropical carpenter bees choose dead wood, pithy stems and bamboo culms for nesting.[3] Preferred wood species for the tropical carpenter bee include, Syzygium cumini, Cassia siamea, Dyera costulata (jelutong), Agathis alba (damar minyak), Alstonia spp. (pulai), and Shorea spp. (light-red meranti). They tend to avoid nyatoh, kapur, kempas, and mengkulang (local names for native trees of Malaysia).[
Notes:
Our parents told us that this were our local bumblebees. Yes, traditionally a bumblebee should be yellow and black striped but here, most of us know this Carpenter Bee as our bumblebee.
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