In January 2019, a clan of scientists and conservationists tramped through the torrid Indonesian forest in search of the Wallace’s giant bee — a species that hadn’t been spotted alive since 1981.
“Nobody had seen it since then,” said Robin Moore, a biologist and communications director for the organization Global Wildlife Conservation, which funded the expedition. “It was feared extinct.”
It wasn’t. They found a female.
The female bee — the larger sex of the species Megachile pluto — is four times the size of the typical European honeybee with a wingspan of 2.5 inches. It’s the largest known bee on the planet. “This is the holy grail of bees,” said Moore. Read more…
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