A living jewel
It gleams green, blue, gold or purple, as if it were made of metal.
The cloud forest · Bees, wasps and ants
Orchid bee
Euglossa
A small bee that shines like polished metal, bright green or blue all over, with a very long tongue.
- Size
- About 1 to 1.5cm long
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Forests from Mexico to Brazil
Hovers after you, glinting. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Orchid bee
Good to know
Six things about the orchid bee
The males collect perfume
Males gather scents from orchids, fungi and rotting wood, and store them in pockets on their back legs.
A scent to impress
He mixes the scents into a perfume of his own, and releases it to attract a female.
Orchids depend on it
Some orchids offer no nectar, only scent. As the bee scrapes it up, the flower glues pollen to his back.
A very long tongue
Its tongue can be longer than its body, for reaching into deep flowers.
A long-distance pollinator
A single bee may fly more than twenty kilometres in a day, visiting plants that are few and far apart.
The real thing
Photos of the orchid bee
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Listen for a high, steady hum near flowering orchids or at a patch of sap on a trunk. It hangs in the air before it lands.
How to help
Orchid bees link the forest's scattered plants together. Where the forest is broken into small pieces, some stop crossing the gaps.
Keep going