Subject: What’s this?
Geographic location of the bug: Slovakia, central Europe, mixed oak-pine woods
Date: 05/19/2018
Time: 11:05 AM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: I found this bee while hiking through the woods picking up mushrooms (I assume it’s a kind of a carpenter bee, something from Xylocopinae) but I can’t seem to find one that looks like it on the internet. It’s May currently, pretty warm outside already (20°C), but I’m not sure how long has the specimen been lying on the ground (I found it dead already). Also, I should mention, it has tentacles with orange endings wider than the rest of the tentacle. There’s no section that would visibly divide between the abdomen and chest area. Also, the bee has really long hind legs with slight yellowish colouring at the end of them. It’s almost 3cm long. Has see-through wings about the same length as the bee itself. Has visible mandibulae and maxilae.
How you want your letter signed: T.
Dear T,
This is not a Bee. It is a Sawfly, a non-stinging relative of Bees and Wasps. It might be a Birch Sawfly, Cimbex femoratus, which is pictured on iNaturalist.