Horse-fly Carpenter Bee

Xylocopa tabaniformis · Order: Hymenoptera · Family: Apidae

Also called: Horsefly-like Carpenter Bee

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Horse-fly Carpenter Bee
Photo: unknown, CC0

The horse-fly carpenter bee measures about 12 to 18 mm in length and is black in color. Males can be recognized by yellow hair on the thorax. It occurs across Central, North, and South America.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

Males have yellow hair on the thorax.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

Adults are 12 to 18 mm long.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 11 of 51 states and DC. Most records: California, Texas, Utah, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Florida.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Status: native in North America; native in United States. Source: iNaturalist

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

Horse-fly Carpenter Bee photo 3
Photo: Richard Peters, CC BY
Horse-fly Carpenter Bee photo 4
Photo: Heather Dawnstar Sabin, CC BY
Horse-fly Carpenter Bee photo 5
Photo: Annika Lindqvist, CC BY
Horse-fly Carpenter Bee photo 6
Photo: Jeremiah Degenhardt, CC BY

Same family (Apidae)

Western Honey BeeWestern Honey BeeApis melliferaCan stingCommon Eastern Bumble BeeCommon Eastern Bumble BeeBombus impatiensCan stingEastern Carpenter BeeEastern Carpenter BeeXylocopa virginicaCan stingBrown-belted Bumble BeeBrown-belted Bumble BeeBombus griseocollisCommon Carder Bumble BeeCommon Carder Bumble BeeBombus pascuorumBuff-tailed Bumble BeeBuff-tailed Bumble BeeBombus terrestris

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylocopa_tabaniformis

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.