This remarkable photograph shows a sweat bee covered in tiny grains of pollen. It is the work of Sam Droege, head of the US Geological Survey Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Programme. Since 2014 he and his colleagues at the USGS Inventory and Monitoring Lab have been attempting to catalogue the 4,000 different species of bees to be found in the United States.
It is quite an undertaking. This image itself is in fact a seamless merging of a number of different micro shots of the bee in question. It is taken from a new book Animal: Exploring the Zoological World, published by Phaidon. It's a collection of more than 300 images of biodiversity as chosen by an international panel of zoologists.
It is also an image that reminds us how vital bees are to the future of the planet. After all, they carry out some 80 per cent of all pollination in the world. And so, the fact that bee numbers are declining should be something that worries us all.
Animal: Exploring the Zoological World, is published by Phaidon, £39.95. © USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here