Clover Melitta vs Coast Myall

Melitta leporina compared with Acacia binervia

Key Differences

• Clover Melitta is Near Threatened while Coast Myall is Least Concern.

Taxonomic Classification

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

Conservation Status

Clover Melitta

NT — Near Threatened

Coast Myall

LC — Least Concern

Physical Characteristics

Attribute	Clover Melitta	Coast Myall
Diet	—	—
Average Lifespan	—	—
Average Length	—	—
Average Weight	—	—

Habitat & Geographic Range

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.

Coast Myall

Habitat

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.

Coast Myall

Coast myall (Acacia binervia) is a small to medium tree or tall shrub in the family Fabaceae, native to coastal and near-coastal regions of New South Wales and Queensland in eastern Australia. It grows in coastal heath, dry sclerophyll woodland, and scrubby vegetation on sandy or rocky substrates, often in association with banksias and eucalypts. Like most Australian wattles, coast myall produces phyllodes—flattened leaf-stalks functioning as leaves—rather than true compound leaves in mature plants. The dark green phyllodes are distinctive, with two main veins, giving rise to the species name binervia. Golden-yellow, spherical flower heads are produced in winter to spring, attracting native bees. The genus Acacia sensu lato encompasses hundreds of species across Australia and globally, many of which play important ecological roles in nitrogen cycling through root symbioses. Coast myall is assessed as Least Concern by the IUCN. It is sometimes planted in coastal revegetation projects for its tolerance of poor, sandy soils, drought, and salt-laden winds.