The largest bee in the world is not extinct

The scientists last spotted this insect called Wallace's Giant Bee, a rare species found only in a group of Indonesian islands, the North Maluku. With a wingspan of 2.5 inches and a body the size of a human thumb, it is considered the largest bee in the world and should be extinguished.

These fears can now be somewhat quieted. In January, an international team of conservationists discovered a pluto megachile, as well as the name of the species, in nature. The team captured the very first pictures and videos of a living specimen, renewing the hope of survival of this species threatened by deforestation.

"It's ridiculously big and so exciting," said biologist Simon Robson at the University of Sydney Australia and member of the expedition.

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The discovery did not come easily. Despite the size of the bee, its rarity, remote location and nesting habits make it difficult to locate.

"I personally know at least five attempts to find the bee," said Clay Bolt, a photographer who was part of the latest expedition.

Bees settle by digging holes in arboreal termite nests, where they spend much of their time hiding.

"It was a lot of walking in the forest in 90 degree heat and with the highest humidity possible to look at termite nests and chase bees," said Dr. Robson. In all, it took five days of hunting for the team to find their "Holy Grail".

Wallace's Giant Bee takes its name from Alfred Russel Wallace, an English entomologist who worked with Charles Darwin to formulate the theory of evolution through natural selection. Wallace discovered the bee during an expedition in 1859, describing the female as "a large black insect resembling a wasp with a huge jawbone like a beetle." (Males measure less than an inch long.)

Although Wallace does not seem particularly interested in the bee – he has devoted only one line to this in his journal – this has become a kind of obsession among biologists. The next sighting did not arrive until 1981, when Adam Messer, an entomologist, observed several in the wild and returned home with a handful of specimens that are now kept at the American Museum of History in New York, the Natural History Museum in London and other institutions.

Dr. Messer observed that bees used their unusually large mandibles to pick up balls of tree resin and wood to fortify their nests, and that they were relatively solitary animals.

Dr. Robson thinks that they are able to sting even if he was not able to provide evidence. "We all wanted to be amazed at how bad it was," he said. But as we only found this one, we treated it with great care. "

The expedition was funded in part by Global Wildlife Conservation, a non-profit organization in Texas that launched a global research effort in 25 "lost" species – animals that are not necessarily extinct but have not been spotted for at least a decade. In addition to Wallace's giant bee, the list includes the pink-headed duck, the turtle Fernandina Galápagos and the flying squirrel Namdapha.

Environmentalists fear that deforestation threatens the survival of the bee giants. Indonesia's bee region lost seven percent of its forest cover between 2001 and 2017, according to Global Forest Monitoring.