Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2012
Studies on the ecology of Megachile perihirta Ckll. (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae), a leaf-cutter bee that is a valuable pollinator of alfalfa in southern Alberta, indicated that the pillager (depredator) Nemognatha lutea Lec. (Coleoptera: Meloidae) and the parasite Dasymutilla fulvohirta (Cress.) (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae) have other hosts besides M. perihirta (Hobbs, 1956). Adults of both species at the nesting habitat of a population of M. perihirta have been too numerous to have come solely from the cells of M. perihirta; also, the wide range in size of the adults of N. lutea indicated that other insects also served as hosts for this species. Mickel (1928, 1928a) found that D. fulvohirta was a pillager of Anthophora occidentalis Cress. In southern Alberts, the wingless females of D. fulvohirta would be within reach of A. occidentalis while parasitizing M. perihirta, as the vertical clay banks that house A. occidentalis are topped by the prairie into which M. perihirta tunnels. As N. lutea lays its eggs in masses on the phyllaries of the buds of wavy-leaved thistle, Cirsium undulatum (Nutt.) Spreng., a favourite food source of M. perihirta, and as A. occidentalis also uses C. undulatum as a food source, investigations were conducted in whether A. occidentalis might be one of the principal hosts of N. lutea too.