Long-lost giant bee, the world's biggest, rediscovered in Indonesia
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Megachile Pluto, commonly known as Wallace's giant bee, shown with a honeybee for scale, has a wingspan of more than 2.5 inches and a body the size of a thumb.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
CANBERRA (DPA) - The world's largest bee, which had not been seen since 1981, has been rediscovered in Indonesia, scientists said on Thursday (Feb 21) as they released images of the insect.
A team of conservationists and international scientists found the first specimens of Megachile Pluto, commonly known as Wallace's giant bee, in Indonesia's North Moluccas islands in January.
On Thursday, they released photographs and video of a nest and its queen, saying their find was the "holy grail" of species discoveries.
"Amid such a well-documented global decline in insect diversity it's wonderful to discover that this iconic species is still hanging on," said Simon Robson, a member of the team and professor at the University of Sydney.
The discovery reignites hope that more of the region's forests may be home to this very rare species, said the team, which includes researchers from the University of Sydney, Saint Mary's University in Canada and Princeton University in the US.
Female specimens of the bee can reach a length of 3.8cm and have a wingspan of more than 6cm. Males grow to about 2.3cm. The insect is named after British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who formulated the theory of evolution by natural selection before Charles Darwin's published contributions.
Wallace collected the species for the first time in 1858 while exploring the Indonesian island of Bacan.
The species was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 1981 by Adam Messer, an American entomologist, who found six nests on the island of Bacan and two other nearby islands. It had not been seen again since.
