This Massive, Nightmare Bee Was Once Thought Extinct. Not Anymore.

[Ninja'd]

https://www.livescience.com/64814-biggest-bee-found-again.html

You'd think that the world's biggest bee would be hard to lose track of. But Wallace's Giant Bee — an Indonesian species with a 2.5-inch (6.4 centimeters) wingspan and enormous mandibles — was last seen by researchers in 1981; it was feared to be extinct.


However, scientists finally spotted the rare bee in January, in the Indonesian province of North Maluku on the Maluku Islands. They detected a solitary female bee after investigating the region for five days, and a photographer captured the first-ever images of a living Wallace's Giant Bee (Megachile pluto) at the insect's nest in an active termite mound.

"It was absolutely breathtaking to see this 'flying bulldog' of an insect that we weren't sure existed anymore," photographer Clay Bolt, who captured the images of the giant, said in a statement published by The University of Sydney in Australia. [In Photos: Bee Eyes and Meat-Eating Plants Light Up Micro-Photo Contest]

Little is known about these elusive insects' habits. The bees' dark-colored bodies measure about 1.5 inches (3.5 cm) in length — about as long as a human thumb — and they build communal nests on termite dwellings in trees, Adam Messer, a researcher who was with the Department of Entomology at the University of Georgia in 1984, wrote in a study published then in the Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society.

Messer was the last scientist to document the supersize bees in the wild — until now.

Messer's rediscovery gave us some insight, but we still know next to nothing about this extraordinary insect," Eli Wyman, an entomologist at Princeton University and one of the researchers who rediscovered the lost bee, said in the statement. The rediscovery could help researchers learn more about the elusive bee, Wyman added.

 

[Ninja'd]

For scale

One of the first images of a living Wallace's Giant Bee, Megachile pluto. The world's largest bee M. pluto is about four times larger than a European honeybee

 

[ToxicBunny]

That is a fscking large flying NOPE....

 

[Fulcrum29]

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

now where did I put my can of doom?

 

[Fulcrum29]

I am generally okay with bees, don't mind their business. Hornets on the other hand...

 

[Fulcrum29]

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

I am generally okay with bees, don't mind their business. Hornets on the other hand...

thats my next question, is it by any chance a hornet subspecies?

 

[Fulcrum29]

thats my next question, is it by any chance a hornet subspecies?

It may be... We have Yellow Jacket wasps in the Western Cape. Note, they aren't indigenous.

 

[eXisor]

Dammit evolution. That is in no way funny.
.

For scale

 

[ToxicBunny]

thats my next question, is it by any chance a hornet subspecies?

Is the Wallace's Giant Bee a subspecies of hornet? Is that what you're asking?

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Is the Wallace's Giant Bee a subspecies of hornet? Is that what you're asking?

in a roundabout way, yes, could it be somebody bred giant bees based on wasps?
or its some kind of natural hybrid of a wasp and a bee?

or more unlikely, is it a clone, and somebody managed to clone one from a sample of its DNA?

 

[Fulcrum29]

in a roundabout way, yes, could it be somebody bred giant bees based on wasps?
or its some kind of natural hybrid of a wasp and a bee?

or more unlikely, is it a clone, and somebody managed to clone one from a sample of its DNA?

Discovered in 1858:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megachile_pluto

Specie: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megachilidae

It is stock standard, albeit a rather large resin bee. Females and males are also unique in the most part characteristically.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

It is stock standard, albeit a rather large resin bee. Females and males are also unique in the most part characteristically.

so how did it survive? how did it suddenly emerge from extinction.
or are there more species that could suddenly emerge , when previously thought extinct.

like the Tasmanian wolf?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine

 

[Sinbad]

those fckers even LOOK like they're about to go all Punisher on you.

 

[ToxicBunny]

so how did it survive? how did it suddenly emerge from extinction.
or are there more species that could suddenly emerge , when previously thought extinct.

like the Tasmanian wolf?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine

It never emerged fro extinction, it never went extinct... we just thought it had because its rare or hard to get to its normal habitats.

 

[Fulcrum29]

so how did it survive? how did it suddenly emerge from extinction.
or are there more species that could suddenly emerge , when previously thought extinct.

like the Tasmanian wolf?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine

Strange specie. It seems the woman are the hard workers. They also build their nests within old nests, termite nests being the popular choice within trees.

Who knows, maybe the Indonesian tribes eat them. I see two was sold on eBay in 2018, somebody knows where to pick them.

It may also be that the males got to lazy to pomp.

 

[OCP]

now where did I put my can of doom?

I think you meant to say flamethrower.

 

[Sinbad]

I think you meant to say flamethrower.

Just add lighter to doom spray

 

[Fulcrum29]

those fckers even LOOK like they're about to go all Punisher on you.

Happily, most bees, hornets (and wasps) are non-aggressive. You really need to stir up the hornet's nest.