Adder'S Fern vs Cliff Mining Bee

Polypodium vulgare compared with Andrena thoracica

Key Differences

Adder'S Fern is Least Concern while Cliff Mining Bee is Extinct.

Taxonomic Classification

Rank	Adder'S Fern	Cliff Mining Bee
Kingdom	Plantae (Plants)	Animalia (Animals)
Phylum	Tracheophyta	Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Class	Polypodiopsida (Polypodiopsida)	Insecta (Insects)
Order	Polypodiales (Polypodiales)	Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees & Wasps)
Family	Polypodiaceae	Andrenidae
Genus	Polypodium	Andrena
Species	Polypodium vulgare	Andrena thoracica

Conservation Status

Adder'S Fern

LC — Least Concern

Cliff Mining Bee

EX — Extinct

Physical Characteristics

Attribute	Adder'S Fern	Cliff Mining Bee
Diet	—	—
Average Lifespan	—	—
Average Length	—	—
Average Weight	—	—

Habitat & Geographic Range

Adder'S Fern

Habitat

Typically found in moist, shaded forest floors and tropical canopies.

Range

Found across Europe (7 countries) and North America (United States).

Cliff Mining Bee

Habitat

Typically found in virtually all terrestrial and freshwater habitats.

Range

Distributed across Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden.

Adder'S Fern

The Adder'S Fern (Polypodium vulgare) is a species in the genus Polypodium. It is currently classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. This species inhabits Typically found in moist, shaded forest floors and tropical canopies, found across Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Norway.

Cliff Mining Bee

The Cliff Mining Bee, Andrena species in the family Andrenidae, is a solitary ground-nesting bee that excavates tunnels in cliff faces, earthen banks, and compacted sandy or loamy soils, where the loose or friable substrates exposed in cliff profiles provide ideal nesting conditions. Mining bees in the genus Andrena are among the most species-rich solitary bee genera in the world, with hundreds of species across the Holarctic region, many narrowly specialized in their choice of pollen host plants. Female cliff mining bees construct vertical or angled burrows in cliff faces, with lateral cells off the main shaft, each containing a pollen ball and a single egg. Males are typically smaller and emerge before females to establish territories near nesting sites. Many Andrena species are oligolectic, collecting pollen from only a small number of plant species, making their populations sensitive to the availability of specific flowering plants in the landscape surrounding nesting areas. Cliff and bank nesting habitats provide well-drained, sun-warmed substrates essential for brood development. The loss of natural cliff faces and earthen banks to development, vegetation succession, and quarrying reduces available nesting habitat for cliff mining bees.