Elusive Thumb-Sized Wallace's Giant Bee Rediscovered After Being Thought to Have Gone Extinct

Wallace's Giant Bee (Megachile pluto) is considered the world's largest bee. It is four times the size of a honeybee and about the length of a human thumb, according to Smithsonian Magazine. It was previously believed to have gone extinct and was last seen alive in 1981. Bee lovers and wildlife experts consider finding Wallace's Giant Bee as possibly the greatest adventure because it has not been found for decades.

But a few years ago, a team of scientists who studied insects rediscovered the bees on an Indonesian island. Entomologist Eli Wyman, who first learned about the bee while working as a curatorial assistant at the American Museum of Natural History, teamed up with other scientists to find the elusive bees and successfully rediscovered them in 2019.

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A 'Megachile parietina' pictured at the State Museum of National History Stuttgart on May 13, 2019 in Stuttgart, Germany.

Rediscovering the World's Largest Bee

Wallace's Giant Bee was named after Alfred Russel Wallace, a prominent scientist who first discovered the massive bee species in 1859. Unfortunately, other scientists could not locate the bees again as they became elusive.

But in a 1984 paper, entomologist Adam Messer wrote that he found the bees on three islands in Indonesia, on an archipelago called North Moluccas. He collected a specimen to study it and described the insect that remained hidden for almost a century in his paper.

Then 38 years later, Wyman and natural history photographer Clay Bolt retraced Wallace's step and journeyed to Indonesia to see if they could find the bee. CBS News reported that the team's five-day trek paid off despite falling ill along the way. Although they were not able to collect specimens for genetic testing due to permitting problems, the team was able to document their discovery.

The mission is for Global Wildlife Conservation to find the elusive bees and study them for their protection and preservation. Bolt described the bee as the most remarkable thing he had ever laid his eyes on.

"My goal was to be the first person to make a photo of a living Wallace's Giant Bee and I had achieved that goal," Bolt wrote.

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Characteristics and Behavior of Wallace's Giant Bee

Wallace's Giant Bee is also called "Raja Ofu," which literally means king of bees. Meanwhile, Live Science has called it a "nightmare bee." But little is known about it, except that it has a dark body, and measures around 1.5 inches long.

Moreover, these bees are known to build communal nests on termite dwellings, as observed by Messer in the 1980s. Bolt and his teammates went back to the US after making the discovery and hope to work with conservation groups to protect the world's largest bee.

Wallace's Giant Bee Being Sold Online

Since its rediscovery, the bee has gained so much media attention and lit up a murky corner of the internet that trades rare animals. The bee has become an unusual and rare trophy like the endangered rhino.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, Wyman saw someone trying to sell a specimen of the bee on eBay for a few thousand dollars that could lure farmers and fishermen of North Maluku to get a portion of this relative fortune. But Wyman hopes that the locals would take pride and ownership of the bees to protect the species.