Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Orchid bee, continued

I don't mean to overload my readers with the orchid bee, but I keep digging up more relevant information. By talking with Cleuson, my caretaker at Bosque Santa Lucia, I discovered the indigenous name of the bee is mangangá. The spelling of the name took some time because he used "c"s instead of "g"s. Once I had the name of the big beauty, it was easy to Google it. I must say, there weren't a lot of references. Most of them were related to persons with that nickname. Regardless, the name is mangangá with several variations of nomenclature, including mamangaba, besouro-mangangá, marimbondo-mangangá and abelhão. It's reported as not being an aggressive bee, but when it does sting, it really hurts. Cleuson also reports that he's seen this bee on the passion fruit flowers in his dad's backyard.

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