Square-spotted Mourning bee

Melecta luctuosa

Melecta is a genus of digger-cuckoo bees in the family Apidae. Melecta is a quite small genus that includes less than 50 species all over the world.
Melucta luctuosa Spotted this bee on the Island of Lesvos Greece. Geotagged,Greece,Melecta luctuosa,Spring,Square-spotted mourning bee

Naming

Scopoli, 1770

Distribution

Europe

Behavior

It does not seem that Melecta are specialized foragers. They seem to visit side by side the same flowers than their Anthophorini hosts. Most of these flowers have long corollae, as Boraginaceae, Lamiaceae, Fabaceae (Leguminosae), Plantaginaceae (former Scrophulariaceae) and Compositae from the Carduae tribe (thistles)

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

http://www.atlashymenoptera.net/page.asp?id=256
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melecta
Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderHymenoptera
FamilyApidae
GenusMelecta
SpeciesMelecta luctuosa
Photographed in
Greece