iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by @literallyapumpkin.bsky.social

Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

#Bugsky 🐙🌿 Shared with me by a fof in SoCal - this is a gynandromorph (both male & female) valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa sonorina). Females are black, males orange, so the extreme color dimorphism really stands out. Per Doug Yanega at UC Riverside, bee gynandromorphs he’s seen are mosaic instead—

A photo looking down on an unusual bee clinging to a green shirt. The bee is a stout bee called a carpenter bee, but what’s unusual is that it is both male and female, known as a gynandromorph. In this particular species (Xylocopa sonorina), females are jet black and males are fuzzy orange. This one has an abdomen that is divided into four perfect quadrants, like a checkerboard, alternating orange and black. The thorax is mostly black but with some orange.

332109631