Clover Melitta vs Dromedary Camel

Melitta leporina compared with Camelus dromedarius

Key Differences

• Clover Melitta is Near Threatened while Dromedary Camel is Not Evaluated.

Taxonomic Classification

Rank	Clover Melitta	Dromedary Camel
Kingdom same	Animalia (Animals)	Animalia (Animals)
Phylum	Arthropoda (Arthropods)	Chordata (Chordates)
Class	Insecta (Insects)	Mammalia (Mammals)
Order	Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees & Wasps)	Artiodactyla (Even-toed Ungulates)
Family	Melittidae	Camelidae (Camels)
Genus	Melitta	Camelus (Camels)
Species	Melitta leporina	Camelus dromedarius

Evolutionary Relationship

Clover Melitta and Dromedary Camel share a common ancestor at the Kingdom level: Animalia. (Animals)

Conservation Status

Clover Melitta

NT — Near Threatened

Dromedary Camel

NE — Not Evaluated

Population: ~15.0M

Trend: Stable →

Physical Characteristics

Attribute	Clover Melitta	Dromedary Camel
Diet	—	Herbivore
Average Lifespan	—	40 years
Average Length	—	2.3 m
Average Weight	—	600.0 kg

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.

Dromedary Camel

Habitat

Inhabits deserts and xeric shrublands within the Afrotropic biogeographic realm. Populations are also found in montane and highland environments at higher elevations.

Range

Distributed across Australia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Sudan.

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.

Dromedary Camel

The dromedary is the single-humped camel, domesticated over 4,000 years ago. The hump stores fat, not water.