World’s largest bee found alive after being presumed extinct for decades

Scientists were left shocked when they recently re-discovered the world’s largest bee, also called ‘flying bulldog’, and found it alive after it had been presumed extinct since last almost 40 years.

After days of searching, the humongous female bee, known as the Wallace’s Giant Bee (Megachile Pluto), was discovered on a little-explored Indonesian island of the North Moluccas after 38 years.

According to The Guardian, the ‘flying bulldog’, was last seen in 1981. The bee is as long as an adult thumb, four times the size of a honeybee, has 2.5-inch wingspan and jaws similar to a stag beetle.

Photographer who captured the bee, Clay Bolt described, “It was absolutely breathtaking to see this ‘flying bulldog’ of an insect that we weren’t sure existed anymore, to have real proof right there in front of us in the wild. To actually see how beautiful and big the species is in life, to hear the sound of its giant wings thrumming as it flew past my head, was just incredible.”

This rare discovery raises hopes that the region’s forests still serve as a home to one of the rarest and most sought after insects in the world. The team believes that this re-discovery could probably spark future research towards a deeper understanding of the life history of the bee and think for efforts to protect it from extinction, reported BBC.

Robin Moore, a conservation biologist with Global Wildlife Conservation said, “By making the bee a world-famous flagship for conservation we are confident that the species has a brighter future than if we just let it quietly be collected into oblivion.”

Little is known about Wallace’s Giant Bee. Live Science explains, the bees’ dark-colored bodies measure about 1.5-inch in length and that they build communal nests on termite dwellings in trees. They were first discovered in the year 1854 by British naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace.