Nomada and Andrena ID - a general information

[Christian]

Now the Andrena and Nomada seasons starts. I want to informe all of you, that identification by pics of both genera is impossible in most species. There are to much similar species (Nomada about 80-100 sp. in Central Europe including Hungary, and Andrena about 130-150 species).

Of course are exceptions possible, but only in few cases. So me ore other experts will not always write "Id not possible", and therefore I informe you by this way. It will also be very helpfull when there is any information about host in Nomada or about a visited flower in Andrena, because most species are very specific the choose of hosts or flowers.

Nevertheless, we all enjoy the wonderfull pics here from so many places in Europe.

Christian

[NickU]

Many thanks for this advice Christian. I posted a Nomada sp. photo on March 20th and guessed from the lack of replies and by checking more information on Nomada online that ID was not possible from a photo alone. Of course we have fewer possible species in the UK than in central Europe, and by looking at some some quite specialist UK sites I think mine is most likely to be Nomada flava or Nomada panzeri, based on the red markings on the thorax and red pattern distribution on the abdomen, but maybe Nomada sp. is the safest ID!
NickU

[Eckart Stolle]

@Christian . hab den Titel noch etwas ergänzt und den Beitrag als "sticky" gespeichert, dann bleibt er in der Liste ganz oben (kannst du immer unterhalb des Beitrag-Textfeldes auswählen.

LG
Eckart