This humongous bee species has been "lost" for decades, beats us as they have missed

Looking at an image of Wallace's giant bee, you would not choose this insect as elusive.

Four times bigger than a bee and a thick black color, she looks like the security officer or bouncer of the bee world. But researchers have just published the first photos and videos of a living giant Wallace bee (Megachile pluto) never taken – a species that has been lost to science since 1981.

How he stayed hidden is mind-boggling. Females (or queens) have a wingspan of more than six centimeters (2.5 inches); it is the largest living bee species known in the world.

They live in arboreal termite mounds (a few termite termites in trees) on some of the Maluku islands in northern Indonesia, and use their enormous mandibles to collect the resin from the trees that line the nest, thus preventing termites to penetrate the mound.

(Simon Robson)

The scientific history of this giant bee is honestly quite short. In 1858, British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (a contemporary of Charles Darwin) collected the bee for the first time and the naming was given to Wallace's giant bee.

It was the last scientific observation of the bee – it was even thought that it was extinct – until its rediscovery more than a hundred years later in 1981 by entomologist Adam Messer .

He found six nests in the Bacan Islands and was able to obtain important information on nesting and physiology. since then there have been no new observations.

Now, it's partly because of the location. North of Maluku is quite far away, especially the areas where these bees stand.

Unfortunately, the IUCN Red List considers Wallace's giant bee as vulnerable, "due to mining and impacts of invasive plant species" in the region.

Which brings us to the present. At the end of last month, a group of four researchers – Glen Chilton, Eli Wyman, Clay Bolt and Simon Robson – all from different scientific backgrounds and institutions around the world, traveled to Indonesia. to see if they could find the virus elusive.

"Glen and I realized that Eli and Clay were also planning to search for the bee.We decided to join forces, we met for the first time in Indonesia and traveled together on the field, each of us brought his own expertise, we could not, I found it without the participation of everyone, it was a fantastic group effort, "Robson told ScienceAlert.

"I brought my expertise as a specialist in the study of insect behavior.I also tried to ensure that there are cold beers available every night for us." help to recover. "

It was not an easy task, and for five days they traveled the North Maluku Forest, staring at the termites for twenty minutes, trying to see if they could notice a move that would betray the bee.

On the last day, it was actually one of their Indonesian guides, Iswan Maujud, who spotted a mound of low termites and looked for the first time at the nest of the bee.

"Iswan, still eagle-eyed, spotted a mound of termites low, about one meter above the ground … we immediately noticed that he had a hole, like many other nests we had seen, but it was a bit more perfect, it was very round and the size a giant bee could use, "Bolt explained in an article about the Global Wildlife expedition.

"I went up next and my headlamp shone on the most remarkable thing I ever looked at.I just could not believe it: we had rediscovered Wallace's giant bee. "

Simon Robson holding the bee specimen. (Clay bolt)

The team took videos and photos of the huge bee and brought it back to its nest.

But the researchers are not finished yet. As there have been so few sightings of short bees, we still know very little about them.

"It challenges us to understand many aspects of its evolution, its behavior and its role in the environment," said Robson.

"Are they specialized plants that depend on this species for pollination, for example." How is the sensory system of an insect so important? What is its social biology?

The team is now collaborating with Indonesian collaborators to find the bee elsewhere and discover more.

"Joining a group of like-minded individuals and imbibing the biology of the region was fantastic, so to rediscover this species together, we hope to achieve positive results for conservation biology in general." Robson said.

"It was one of the best holidays of my life."