Tiny Tuesday

We are in the midst of a heatwave right now with commensurate humidity to ensure truly hellish conditions.  10 minutes outside produced a significant amount of perspiration so my time to track down something small for TinyTuesday was limited.  However...as I was hovering over the mountain mint patch, resigned to probably having to blip a honeybee or something equally bland, I spotted a tiny creature darting amount the blooms.  A sharp-tailed bee!  I don't recall seeing this species here before this year but I could be mistaken.  Anyway, it's about 7-10mm (1/4-1/3 inch) long so definitely meets the "tiny" criteria.  Big thanks to JDO for hosting this month!

And because I'm sure you're dying to know a little something about this creature... These are in the Megachilini Tribe of bees, which includes leafcutters, resin, mortar and sharp-tailed bees.  They are a parasitic (cuckoo) bee who specialize in leafcutter bees.  The female seeks out a leafcutter "nursery" and uses her very sharp tail to cut open the leaf and lay her own eggs on the pollen provisions that the hard-working leafcutter has placed.  It's unknown if the sharp-tailed bee also removes the host eggs or if her own young simply eat the other bee's eggs/larvae.  Anyway, they are fast moving little things and I was hard pressed to get two shots that were even remotely acceptable.  

I also had a large fork-tailed katydid male in the garden and he would have been my pick had this enchanting bee not come along.  You can see the katy did dude in extra.

Had an appointment to have my teeth cleaned and checked this morning.  I am a big grainy-cat when it comes to dentists and when I realized that he had a new hygienist, I confess my heart rate accelerated.  Happily, she was very gentle and my teeth didn't require a lot of work.  The dentist had a look and proclaimed that everything is fine.  Whew.

The next 3 days are going to be hot so I will probably take advantage of the time to work on a presentation I committed to doing in November on Birds of the Colombian Andes.  This will involve going through all my pics from my 2021 trip to Colombia which will be fun.

Dark with chili today.

xo
Debbi