brigalow vs Clover Melitta

Acacia harpophylla compared with Melitta leporina

Key Differences

• brigalow is Least Concern while Clover Melitta is Near Threatened.

Taxonomic Classification

Rank	brigalow	Clover Melitta
Kingdom	Plantae (Plants)	Animalia (Animals)
Phylum	Magnoliophyta (Flowering Plants)	Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Class	Magnoliopsida (Dicots)	Insecta (Insects)
Order	Fabales (Legumes & Allies)	Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees & Wasps)
Family	Fabaceae	Melittidae
Genus	Acacia	Melitta
Species	Acacia harpophylla	Melitta leporina

Conservation Status

brigalow

LC — Least Concern

Clover Melitta

NT — Near Threatened

Physical Characteristics

Attribute	brigalow	Clover Melitta
Diet	—	—
Average Lifespan	—	—
Average Length	—	—
Average Weight	—	—

Habitat & Geographic Range

brigalow

Habitat

Typically found in diverse terrestrial habitats from tropical forests to temperate regions.

Clover Melitta

Habitat

Typically found in virtually all terrestrial and freshwater habitats.

Range

Distributed across Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden. Listed as Near Threatened, this species requires ongoing monitoring to prevent population decline.

brigalow

The brigalow (Acacia harpophylla) is a species in the genus Acacia. It is currently classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Typically found in diverse terrestrial habitats from tropical forests to temperate regions.

Clover Melitta

The clover Melitta (Melitta leporina) is a solitary bee in the family Melittidae, order Hymenoptera, with a distribution centered on temperate Europe including Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden. Unlike social bees, Melitta species are ground-nesting solitary bees in which each female constructs and provisions her own nest independently. M. leporina is oligolectic — highly specialized in its pollen collection — gathering pollen almost exclusively from leguminous plants, particularly clovers (Trifolium), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), and related species in the family Fabaceae. This specialization makes the bee closely dependent on the availability of flowering legume patches within foraging distance of nesting sites. Nest sites are in bare or sparsely vegetated sandy or loamy soils, often in sunny, sheltered locations such as road embankments, field margins, and sandy grasslands. Adults fly from midsummer through early autumn in a single annual generation. M. leporina is classified as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List, reflecting declining populations across much of its European range due to agricultural intensification, loss of flower-rich grasslands, reduction in diverse legume cultivation, and loss of suitable open nesting habitat. Conservation of M. leporina depends on maintaining semi-natural grassland habitats with diverse flowering legumes and accessible sandy soils for nesting, along with reduction of pesticide use that harms adult foraging and larval survival.