August 26, 2026 Welcome to 'random bee', a short writing series where I choose a random page in the book "Bees of the World: A Guide to Every Family" by Laurence Packer, then read up on it and do a short write up. Today's random bee is: Genus: Dasypoda Family: Melittidae Subfamily: Dasypodainae Tribe: Dasypodaini beautiful baggy pants. by Jeremy Early. This family, Melittidae, I know little about. It is a small family (for bees), with 14 genera and 200 species. The genus Dasypoda is one of the more specious genera, with 39 species. It is restricted to the eastern hemisphere, so I have never seen one before (being an American). They are found in North Africa, all across Europe, and in most of China and Japan. Dasypoda literally means "hairy feet", referring to their fuzzy back legs with especially long hairs. Instead of just long pollen collecting hairs on one part of the leg, the entire back leg is really fuzzy. Their body overall is also really fuzzy, and many of them have bright yellow hairs. All bees in this family are ground nesters and are pollen generalists. Dasypoda nests in sandy soil and often leaves a big pile of sand that it dug out at the nest entrance. Some of them form nest aggregations, where several individuals build their own nests but the nests are very close to each other. Dasypoda actually has the record for the largest nesting aggreagationt that we know off, with more than 12 MILLION nests along a Russian riverbanks. That's...a lot of bees. Some Dasypoda have adapted to urban environments pretty well and will nest in road cracks. Like all solitary bees, females create a pollen provision for each egg they lay, which provides food for the growing larvae. While most provisions are circular or loaf-shaped, Dasypoda provisions are uniquely shaped with legs or ridges on the underside. These legs lift the provision from being in contact with the floor of the cell. It's probably related to preventing mold or bacterial growth, so the provision doesn't stay too wet. Unlike related bees, Dasypoda don't secrete any special lining for the nest cells. One of the more well known Dasypoda is Dasypoda hirtipes, which is called the common pantaloon bee (amazing name). The long hairs really do look like pantaloons. In the females, they store pollen in these hairs, making the pantaloons look even bigger! The species name hirtipes comes from the word hirsute, meaning hairy. D. hirtipes really likes sandy areas and in the UK can be found in coastal dunes. The main tunnel in the nest can be up to 23 inches long! They are also found around the coasts of Wales and Norfolk. You might have heard the term Dasypoda before, because an armadillo family is named Dasypodidae for the same reason - they have hairy feet. An armadillo genus Dasypus has the same origin.