They saw the largest bee in the world for the first time in 38 years: "It looks like a flying bulldog"

A nature protection expedition found in the northern Maluku Islands, Indonesia, a specimen of Wallace's bee, or ", Megachile pluto", the largest in the world. The last time it was scientifically documented was in 1981.

The Wallace bee, black and the size of a human thumb, is equipped with big jaws and nests in mounds of termites in trees. It bears the name of the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who documented its existence for the first time in 1858. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature considers this bee as a bee. vulnerable species.

"It was amazing to see this insect that It looks like a 'flying bulldog'and from which we were not sure that it would continue to existIn a statement released on Thursday, bee nest photographer Clay Bolt claimed to be the first to take photos and record a video of a living specimen of this species.

"Seeing how beautiful and big this species is in life, listening to the sound of its giant air-ripping wings as it flew over my head, was simply amazing," Bolt added.

The expedition, made up of three biologists and two Indonesian guides, visited several areas in the north-east of the archipelago in January, until they found this insect. we know little because of the remoteness of its habitat.

This discovery is part of an initiative of the US NGO Global Wildlife Conservation to find 25 species, such as the Pondicherry shark or the chameleon Voeltzkow, that have not been observed in recent years. decades or a century.

The environmental organization warns that the habitat of the insect is visible threatened by deforestation in Indonesia, according to the official data of the country of the world lost more rainforest between 1990 and 2015, 24 million hectares in total.

The Asian country has hundreds of species threatened by industrial and agricultural development, including the orangutan, the Sumatran tiger or the Sumatran rhino and Java.