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The tropical carpenter bee, ''Xylocopa latipes'', is a species of carpenter bee widely dispersed throughout Southeast Asia. As its name suggests, this bee inhabits forests in warm tropical climates and constructs nests by burrowing into wood. It often makes long deep tunnels in wooden rafters, fallen trees, telephone poles and the like, but is not found in living trees.〔Jones, Richard. (2006). Bibliography of Commonwealth Apiculture. ISBN 0850927714. 190.〕 It was first scientifically described by the English entomologist, Dru Drury in 1773, and is a member of the group of solitary bees (Family Apidae). The tropical carpenter bee is a very large, robust, solitary bee. It is shiny, fully black in colour with fuscous metallic blue-green or purple wings in sunlight. The tropical carpenter bee is probably the largest ''Xylocopa'' known and among the largest bees of the world (though it is not the world's largest, that title belongs to another Southeast Asian bee, the Indonesian Megachile pluto). It has a loud and distinctive, low-pitched buzzing that can be heard as it flies between flowers or perches. In Urban areas, these bees can become attached to certain perches, returning to them day after day, even after several generations. ==Mating== Carpenter bees mate on-the-wing. Males grasp the females in flight and place their front or middle legs, which have fringes of long setae, over the compound eyes of their mate. It is thought that the dilated front legs of males of some species of carpenter bees collect and trap oils and odours that function during mating.〔Wittman, D. and B. Blochtein. (1995). “Why males of leafcutter bees hold the females’ antennae with their front legs during mating”. Apidologie 26, 181-195.〕 Xylocopa latipes are considered multivoltine as they can have more than two generations per year but this depends on the availability of floral resources in their habitat.〔Solomon, A. J. Raju, and S. Purnachandra Rao. (2006). "Nesting habits, floral resources and foraging ecology of large carpenter bees (Xylocopa latipes and Xylocopa pubescens) in India". CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 90, NO. 9, 1210. ()〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Xylocopa latipes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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