Anthidium manicatum

Males are larger than females, which is very unusual among bees, where females are usually the bigger sex.

Males have spines on the abdomen, which they use when defending their territory from other bees.

Its native range covers Europe, western Asia and northern Africa.

It was accidentally brought to the United States, where it was first recorded near Ithaca, New York, in 1963.

It has also spread into South America, where a 2015 study reported it for the first time in Chile.

In Britain it has one generation a year, flying from late May to early August, with a peak in June and July.

Its nests are attacked by a cuckoo bee, Stelis punctulatissima, which raises its young on the wool carder bee's stored food.

Females scrape the fine hairs off woolly plants with their toothed jaws, and this habit gives the bee its name, wool carder.

The walls of each nest cell and the plug that closes the nest are made from pressed layers of long, silky plant hairs.

Favoured plants for hair collection include woundworts such as lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina) and yarrow.

Females nest in existing holes, such as beetle exit holes in dead wood and hollow stems.

Dead nettles are the flowers most often reported for its foraging, though it takes nectar from many different plants.

Large males vigorously defend patches of favoured flowers and chase away any other insect that enters their territory.

Where it has been introduced, scientists are concerned that it may compete with native bees.