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Sticker of Green orchid bee
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Green orchid bee

Euglossa dilemma

The green orchid bee is a little bee that shines bright metallic green, like a jewel. It can hover in the air for a long time and then zip from flower to flower. The males collect sweet smells from plants and keep them in special pockets on their back legs.

Lives in
Central America from Mexico to Costa Rica, and now also southern Florida
Length
1.3 cm (0.51 in)
Top speed
about 23 km/h (14 mph)
Flying, estimate
What does it eat?
Both males and females drink nectar from flowers with their extra long tongues. The females also collect pollen to feed their babies.
For real!Photo of Green orchid bee
Picture by Bob Peterson from North Palm Beach, Florida, Planet Earth!. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Green orchid bee about 1.3 cm long (0.51 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 16 secondsmoves 490 times its own body length every second

How big is Green orchid bee compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

A male mixes his own perfume from plant smells and fans it with his wings to attract a female.

2

It arrived in Florida by accident, maybe hiding in a wooden pallet, and was first spotted there in 2003.

3

The mother builds her nest out of sticky plant resin and lays one egg in each of up to twenty little rooms.

4

At first scientists thought it was a different bee. They had to look closely at the tiny teeth on the males' jaws to tell them apart.

5

Its very long tongue lets it reach nectar deep inside long, tube-shaped flowers.

you asked

Most asked questions about Green orchid bee

?How big is the green orchid bee?

It is about 1.3 centimetres long.

?Why does the male orchid bee collect perfume?

He uses the smells he gathers from plants to attract a female.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Euglossa dilemma
Group
Bees and bumblebees
Family
Apidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Dilemma orchid bee

Where the facts come from

  1. Euglossa dilemma (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Bob Peterson from North Palm Beach, Florida, Planet Earth!. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

More from the same group: Bees and bumblebees

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows