Insect of the week | Southern Plains Bumble Bee #insects #entomology #bugs #bees

Added: 2026-06-07

[00:00:01]My name [music] is John Mola. I'm an assistant professor of ecology at Colorado State University. Uh the insect [music] I want to share with you today is Bombus fraternus.

[00:00:13]So, Bombus fraternus is an [music] important insect because it's a historically our more common species in eastern Colorado. So, one [music] fun morphological uh feature of this species, I suppose, is the differences in eye size >> [music] >> uh between males and females. So, we look at the male for Bombus fraternus, you can see they have these really kind of [music] comically enlarged eyes. They look like goofy little aliens, I think.

[00:00:36]And the reason for those enlarged [music] eyes is so they can see females from quite a long distance. So, the way this species mates is they hover maybe 20 or 30 m above the ground, use those enlarged eyes to [music] find and then charge after potential mates. We need these types of specimens. My name is John Mola. I chose Bombus fraternus or the southern plains bumblebee.