For today's #MarshMadness I've painted a masked bee, Hylaeus nelumbonis, and a flower in the genus it was named for, an American lotus (Nelumbo lutea). The paintings are not to scale; you could fit a handful of these little bees in the center of the flower, all squirming around to cover themselves in pollen.
These guys present a good cautionary tale for why we need more insect observations. For over a hundred years after they were first described, it was assumed these bees only visited lotuses in the genus Nelumbo, because that's where they were first found. But a survey last year found them on over a dozen completely unrelated species, and not a single one on any of the abundant lotuses examined!
#SciArt #InsectArt #FlowerArt #watercolor