Corbicula (pollen basket) - Wikipedia
The pollen basket or corbicula (plural corbiculae) is part of the tibia on the hind legs of the female of certain species of bees. They use the structure in harvesting pollen and carrying it to the nest or hive where it is used as food by the colony. Bee species with no pollen baskets have scopae, which fulfil a similar role. There was little formal description of the corbicula before Carl Linnaeus explained the biological function of pollen in the mid-18th century. In English the first edition of Encyclopædia Britannica described the structure in 1771 without giving it any special name.[1] The second edition, 1777, refers to the corbicula simply as the "basket".[2] By 1802 William Kirby had introduced the Neo-Latin term corbicula into English. He had borrowed it, with acknowledgement, from Réaumur. Like other Latin anatomical terms, this had the advantages of specificity, international acceptability, and culture neutrality.[3] By 1820 the term pollen-basket seems to have gained accept
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