page_title: Megachile melanophaea
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Megachile melanophaea / Description
caption_attribution_description: A northern leaf-utter. Note all the lovely cutting edges on the mandibles. Found at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Picture taken by Colby Francoeur. Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile
context_page_description: Megachile melanophaea is a species of leaf-cutter bee in the family Megachilidae. It was first described by the British zoologist Frederick Smith in 1853. It is native to North America.
context_section_description: Females are 12 to 14 millimetres (0.47 to 0.55 in) long while males are 9 to 12 millimetres (0.35 to 0.47 in). The head is black and is  clothed with brownish-black hairs except around the lower part of the face and the base of the antennae where the hairs are yellowish-white. The thorax is densely pubescent, the hairs being yellowish-white on the back and sides and brownish-black on the underparts and legs. The wings are translucent with brownish-black veins. The first two terga (dorsal plates) of the abdomen have erect pale hairs and the hind terga have erect black hairs. The scopa (pollen-carrying apparatus under the abdomen) has reddish-brown hairs.
caption: Frontal view of face
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2014:04:07 18:00:05", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "314", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7905", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5184", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3744"}