Ikke bare en bi, men en Xylocopa violaceus - no less...

I loerdags saa jeg jo denne hersens famoese bi, som jeg foerst troede var en stag beetle og som Sofie foreslog maaske var en May bug?

Jeg kunne bare ikke finde noget som helst paa indernettet om en lignende bi og endte med at sende en email til "Engelsk insektforbund" eller hvad nu de kan oversaettes til - og bad dem kigge paa billedet som jeg havde lagt op paa Flickr, saa de kunne identificere kraeet for mig.

I dag fik jeg svar tilbage. Foerst kom denne her:

Dear Tina,

Your enquiry to the Royal Entomological Society website has been forwarded to me for comment. The first point to make is that your insect has two pairs of soft/veined wings and is therefoe NOT a beetle. There are maybugs around - Ive seen two so far, but these are a) beetles, b) light brown in colour and c) have a hard first pair of wings = elytra.

So what is your insect? My preference would be to say it is Xylocopa violaceus, a European species of bee related to our bumblebees. This is an extremely rare bee in this country and I have seen a map produced in the Kent Field Clubs journal a year ago showing just 4 sightings, mostly in east Kent, and all recent. It is a candidate that might establish itself here from nearby France due to climate change. I would be most grateful if you could provide more precise details of location (pref a grid reference to 6 figs), name of the locality (town) and date - as the record will be worth forwarding to a local Records Centre. If it's Kent, then that's great. I may well have overwintered here,- further evidence of establishment.

My second thought is that it is a cuckoo bumblebee as the wings are dark. However they are probably too dark for any British cuckoo bumblebee. There are suggestions of banding which should help determine the identification. However it doesnt look quite like a bumblebee. Hymenoptera (bees, wasps) are not my group (there are 5000+ species in the UK compared with 240 native birds!) and so Ive asked a colleague to comment.

Yours sincerely,

John Badmin

Hon Secretary

Royal Entomological Society

Ok, saa den synes altsaa at vaere rimelig sjaelden, uanset hvad den er for en karl. Jeg laerte desuden en flok nye ord, jeg naevner i flaeng: humenoptera og entomologi!

Lidt senere kom der besked fra den gode Mr Badmin igen:

Dear Tina,

My colleagues Juliet Osborne (Rothamsted) and Paul Williams (Natural History Museum) confirm my identification - that it is Z. violaceus. An excellent record which should be recorded in a local Biological Records Centre.

I look forward to reciving locality details

Yours sincerely,

John Badmin

RES Secretary

P.S.Could we use your photo for publishing in our house journal Antenna? This takes/publishes high quality colour pictures of insects.

Bop bop - jeg vidste jeg skulle vaere blevet biolog. Jeg har altid vaeret VILDT interesseret i hvad vi kaldte "naturhistorie", da jeg gik i skole og har studeret alskens underlige kryb (alt andet end EDDERKOPPER!!!) under alle mulige forhold.

Jeg skrev tilbage til Mr Badmin og takkede ham for det hurtige svar og bad ham bruge mit billede lige saa tosset som han vil. Jeg er simpelthen saa glad for jeg spurgte.

Laeg venligst maerke til at de bruger "high quality" farvebilleder... LOL - billedet er taget med min mobiltelefon, for mit gode kamera laa oppe ovenpaa og jeg havde ikke tid at hente det.

Jeg falder i svime naar jeg ser Vampyrpingvinen og Farmer vise billeder af deres bistader og her har jeg min helt egen private lille sjaeldne bi. Ok "lille" er saa meget sagt, for den er naesten paa stoerrelse med min svigerindes hund! (Overdrivelse fremmer forstaaelsen...)

Manden min synes naturligvis jeg er bindegal, men jeg er da heldigvis lige glad, for jeg synes det er vildt spaendende!