Yellow Meadow Ant vs Orange-tailed Mining Bee

Side-by-side species comparison

Attribute Yellow Meadow Ant Orange-tailed Mining Bee
Scientific Name Lasius flavus Andrena haemorrhoa
Order Hymenoptera Hymenoptera
Family Formicidae Andrenidae
Size 2-4 mm 8-12 mm
Habitat Grasslands Orchards
Diet Root Feeders Fruit Feeders
Regions Europe, Western Asia Europe
Conservation Least Concern Least Concern

Yellow Meadow Ant

A yellow subterranean ant that builds earth mounds in grasslands across Europe. Workers rarely come to the surface, spending most of their lives tending root aphids underground. Their mounds create distinctive hummocky landscapes in old meadows.

💡

Did You Know?

Some of their grassland mounds are estimated to be over a century old and support unique plant communities on their surface.

Orange-tailed Mining Bee

A common spring bee with a ginger thorax and orange-tipped abdomen. It visits a wide variety of flowers and is an important fruit tree pollinator.

💡

Did You Know?

It is one of the most abundant spring-flying solitary bees across the whole of Europe.