Appearance
The tropical carpenter bee is a very large, robust, solitary bee. It is shiny, fully black in colour with fuscous metallic blue-green or purple wings in sunlight. The tropical carpenter bee is probably the largest ''Xylocopa'' known and among the largest bees of the world . It has a loud and distinctive, low-pitched buzzing that can be heard as it flies between flowers or perches. In Urban areas, these bees can become attached to certain perches, returning to them day after day, even after several generations.
Naming
It was first scientifically described by the English entomologist, Dru Drury in 1773, and is a member of the group of solitary bees.
Defense
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 of about 11 cm in length and 2.1 - 2.3 cm in diameter.Tropical carpenter bees choose dead wood, pithy stems and bamboo culms for nesting. Preferred wood species for the tropical carpenter bee include, ''Syzygium cumini'', ''Cassia siamea'', ''Dyera costulata'' , ''Agathis alba'' , ''Alstonia spp.'' , and ''Shorea spp.'' . They tend to avoid nyatoh, kapur, kempas, and mengkulang .
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