Malpighiaceae-pollination
Guides
Centris
Oil-diggers
Centris is a genus of approximately 250 large apid bees distributed from the southern United States through South America. Females are specialized oil collectors, possessing morphological adaptations for gathering floral oils from plants, primarily in the family Malpighiaceae, which they use for larval nutrition and cell construction. The genus is sister to the corbiculate bees (honey bees, bumble bees, stingless bees) and represents an important lineage for understanding bee evolution and pollination ecology.