Photo by Dee Shea Himes – iNaturalist – CC-BY4.0

By Michael O’Loughlin

A new native bee species has been found in Oregon. It was discovered as part of an Oregon Bee Atlas study and expands our knowledge of Willamette Valley biodiversity and the importance of protecting sites such as Muddy Valley Habitat Reserve.

Dan and Michael O’Loughlin are volunteers with the Oregon Bee Atlas which is an Oregon State University Extension program. They were on the site doing a bumble bee study which resulted in finding 13 of the 18 native species that are known to live in Oregon. That in itself is an amazing testament to the importance of this site. But there was another unexpected discovery. A bee in a genus that was believed to only exist in one state, California.

The species is thought to be Xenoglossodes pomonae, the Pomona longhorn bee. Taxonomists can only confirm a particular species by DNA barcoding and examining them under a microscope. The DNA work was done by Dr. Briana Lindh at Willamette University and then the bee was sent to Lincoln Best at Oregon State University for morphological evaluation. Preliminary results came up with a match to the Pomona longhorn bee, however there are some coloration and structural differences which means it is either indeed this rare bee or a new species not previously known to science

Further study will need to be done but for now it is important to continue the conservation efforts at Muddy Valley. This bee, like many is a floral specialist. It most likely relies on a healthy population of tarweed.

The documentation of floral-bee interactions using iNaturalist is part of the ongoing effort of the Oregon Bee Atlas whose overall mission is to document every native bee species in our beautiful state and produce information that can help inform conservation efforts at sites such as Muddy Valley Habitat Reserve.