''Coelioxys rufitarsis'', common name red-legged cuckoo leafcutter bee, is a species of

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

in the family

Megachilidae Megachilidae is a cosmopolitan family of mostly solitary bees. Both that their pollen-carrying structure (called a '' scopa'') is restricted to the ventral surface of the abdomen (rather than mostly or exclusively on the hind legs as in other ...

. It is native to North America.Mitchell, T.B. 1962
Bees of the Eastern United States.
North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Technical Bulletin No. 152. Accessed through discoverlife.org on 11 August 2017. This

cuckoo bee The term cuckoo bee is used for a variety of different bee lineages which have evolved the kleptoparasitic behaviour of laying their eggs in the nests of other bees, reminiscent of the behavior of cuckoo birds. The name is perhaps best applied to ...

parasitizes the nests of several other bee species, including ''

Megachile latimanus ''Megachile latimanus'', or the broad-handed leafcutter, is a species of bee in the family Megachilidae. It was described by Thomas Say Thomas Say (June 27, 1787 – October 10, 1834) was an American entomologist, conchologist, and Herpetology ...

'', '' M. melanophoea'', and '' M. perihirta''.Cuckoo Bees.
UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab.

References

rufit Hymenoptera of North America Insects of Canada Insects of the United States Insects described in 1854 {{Megachilidae-stub