Mystery Andrena at Yturria Brush Part 2 , 11/5/26

So I can't do much about specimen collection of the unknown bees I photographed at the Yturria Brush unit of the Lower Rio Grande NWR on 11/2 but maybe I could get better photos.  So I made another trip to Yturria on 11/5 and spent a fun two hours potographing bees.  The first one I got was the unknown Callandrena.  It was suggested I get some face shots and so I did.  First some females.

And then some males.

 

My only shots of male/female interaction occurred when a male swooped in and chased a female off a flower.

Well these might seem like sufficiently good photos for a species identification but apparently not.  Sam Wilhelm communicated the photos rule out some possible taxa but don't suggest any positive ID.  Again "Can we get a specimen?"

Paula Sharp suggested I contact Jackson Wingert (AKA bug_boy_jack on iNat).  He has been working on a bee project in the RGV as a graduate student from The University of Louisiana Lafayette.  Well Jack had been following the Yturria bee mystery but sadly was out of the Valley and anyway lacked the collection permit for Yturria Brush.  But Jack knows biologist Mitch Sternberg (AKA curioustejano on iNat) and guess what?  Mitch has a collection permit!  Mitch was able to collect a couple of females which he entered into iNaturalist.  Here's another record.  He collected two of the female Callandrena which he pinned and photographed.

Damn!  The ball is rolling now.  With specimens in hand melitollogists can start working through the keys.  Sam Wilhelm says it's close to Callandrena accepta but the tergal spots don't match the taxon on Wallace LaBerge's 1967 key for Andrena of North America. 

Meanwhile, I also photographed the cool little red Nomada like cuckoo bee.  But no one dares ID it to species yet.     It very well might be the brood parasite for the above species.

There were other bees about.  Another one that no one will ID is this good looking female Longhorn Cuckoo Bee.  I'm going to work on it some and see what I can come up with.

A couple of uncommon Epimelissodes sabinensis were copulating.  They may well be the host for the kleptoparasite above.

How about a leafcutter bee?  Megachile sidalceae.

And no one is venturing an ID for these little longhorn bees.

That's enough.  My brain bee fried.  Did I discover a new species of bee?  Probably not but that would be cool.