Franklin's bumblebee (Bombus franklini) is one of the most narrowly distributed bumblebee species,[2] making it a critically endangered bee of the western United States.[3] It lives only in a 190-by-70-mile (310 by 110 km) area in southern Oregon and northern California, between the Coast and Sierra-Cascade mountain ranges. It was last seen in 2006.[1] Franklin's bumblebee is a generalist forager which collects nectar and pollen from several wildflowers, such as lupine, California poppy, and horsemint.[4]
| Franklin's bumblebee | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Apidae |
| Genus: | Bombus |
| Subgenus: | Bombus |
| Species: | B. franklini
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| Binomial name | |
| Bombus franklini (Frison, 1921)
| |
Description
editFranklin's bumblebee is distinguished from other bumblebees by a solid black abdomen, with a yellow U-shaped pattern on the anterior thorax.[5] Females have black hair on their faces and the vertices, with some light hairs mixed above and below their antennal bases, where most similar bumblebee species have yellow.[6] Males of this species are similar except their malar spaces are as long as they are wide, the hair on their faces is yellow, and tergum 6 has some pale hairs laterally.[6]
Conservation
editThe population of this bumblebee species has decreased drastically since 1998,[7] with last sighting in Oregon, in 2006.[citation needed] Some experts, as professor Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex,[8] say this species is already extinct, but until more concrete evidence is shown, it has been assigned a conservation status rank of G1 (critically imperiled) by NatureServe,[citation needed] and categorized as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List.[citation needed]
A petition was submitted by the Xerces Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Center for Food Safety to the California Fish and Game Commission in October 2018 to list Bombus franklini and three others as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act.[9][10]
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife evaluated this petition in a report for the California Fish and Game Commission completed in April 2019.[10] On June 12, 2019 the California Fish and Game Commission voted to add all four bumblebees, including Bombus franklini, to the list of protected species under the California Endangered Species Act.[11] A subsequent legal challenge of the CESA's definition of a fish as "a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals"[11] was eventually overruled, because the explicit intent was for all invertebrates (therefore including insects) to be qualified for protection under this legal definition.[12]
References
edit- ^ a b Kevan, P.G. (2008). "Bombus franklini". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2008: e.T135295A4070259. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T135295A4070259.en. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
- ^ Williams, Paul H.; et al. (2012). "Unveiling cryptic species of the bumblebee subgenus Bombus s. str. worldwide with COI barcodes (Hymenoptera: Apidae)". Systematics and Biodiversity. 10 (1): 21–56. doi:10.1080/14772000.2012.664574. hdl:1893/7328.
- ^ Jeff Barnard (24 June 2010). "Group seeks endangered listing for Franklin's bumblebee". USA Today. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
- ^ Bombus franklini. Encyclopedia of Life.
- ^ Franklin's bumble bee may be extinct. Phys.org. 26 May 2009.
- ^ a b Bumble bees: Franklin’s bumble bee (Bombus franklini). Archived 2017-10-22 at the Wayback Machine Xerces Society.
- ^ NatureServe. 2015. Bombus franklini. NatureServe Explorer Version 7.1. Accessed 4 March 2016.
- ^ Goulson, Dave (25 April 2014). "The Beguiling History of Bees". Scientific American. Retrieved 27 February 2024.
- ^ Hatfield R, Jepsen S, Jordan SF, Blackburn M and Code A. 2018. A Petition to the State of California Fish and Game Commission. https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=161902&inline
- ^ a b California Department of Fish and Wildlife. 2019. EVALUATION OF THE PETITION FROM THE XERCES SOCIETY, DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE, AND THE CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY TO LIST FOUR SPECIES OF BUMBLE BEES AS ENDANGERED UNDER THE CALIFORNIA ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT. https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=166804&inline
- ^ a b Weiland P. 2019. Fish and Game Commission Adds Four Bumble Bees to Candidate List. Endangered Species Law and Policy. https://www.endangeredspecieslawandpolicy.com/fish-and-game-commission-adds-four-bumble-bees-to-candidate-list
- ^ "ALMOND ALLIANCE OF CALIFORNIA et al., v. FISH AND GAME COMMISSION et al" (PDF). May 31, 2022. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 7, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
External links
edit- "Franklin's bumblebee (Bombus franklini) species profile". Environmental Conservation Online System. United States Fish and Wildlife Service.