World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/february/the-worlds-largest-bee-rediscovered-after-38-years.html

by sohkamyung • 7 years ago

130 40 7 years ago

nhm.ac.uk

Dumble• 7 years ago

Thanks, I hate it. :)

vezycash• 7 years ago

You hate the rediscovery or the bee?

Numberwang• 7 years ago

Don't worry, we will soon have it killed off along with the rest of the insects.

goatlover3• 7 years ago

Do you really think we can create a greater extinction event than the ones the insects have survived? And yes, that includes some serious climate changes.

dagaci• 7 years ago

Buzzkill

robotmay• 7 years ago

Alfred Russell Wallace, the namesake of this bee, was a very interesting character and largely forgotten next to Charles Darwin. There's a rather great documentary with comedian/naturalist Bill Bailey that I would recommend watching if you're interested in this area of the world and Wallace's history: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2968430/

huffmsa• 7 years ago

I fully expected this to be a resident of The Land of Misfit Animals, AKA Australia.

Quite surprised it's not. Indonesia is close enough that it might have escaped it's confines, though.

thaumasiotes5• 7 years ago

Wallace's giant bee (Megachile pluto), which can reach four times the size of a honeybee

Something is weird. They head the article with a big image captioned "Wallace's giant bee in comparison with a honeybee"; it shows the honeybee as being much less than a quarter the size of the giant bee.

BartBoch• 7 years ago

It seems they have used some small honey bee. You can see on the other pics that the size comparison would be alrighty.

peteradio2• 7 years ago

It looks about 4 times its length.

thaumasiotes5• 7 years ago

By that argument, the White House is 90% of the size of the Empire State Building.

pbhjpbhj2• 7 years ago

Specimens sold to collectors for several thousand pounds, don't think they're going to survive long unless some enterprising "poacher" breeds them.

thaumasiotes5• 7 years ago

I wouldn't bet on a thick order book.

The first one sold for 7,000 pounds; the second one sold for 3,200. Continuing that trend would mean an infinite number of bees would sell for less than 14,000 pounds total.

There just aren't that many rich bee collectors.

pbhjpbhj2• 7 years ago

Well let's say there's one hive, would someone sell 7000 bees -- the price floor appears to be £6-8 (based on pinned stag beetle price on eBay).

So, I reckon someone could get a minimum of £7k for collecting the hive. No need to collect infinite bees!

jamiethompson• 7 years ago

Where was he hiding?

droithomme• 7 years ago

It's very interesting how this bee relies on termite mounds to live in and specific kinds of tree resin to build termite free sections. Since there's a finite number of termite mounds on the couple islands it lives on there's not many of these bees in the world, nor will there ever be. Also interesting that the bees, being near extinct, are worth a lot of money to collectors at auctions, and that the people who live on this island have very few sources of outside income.

chiefalchemist• 7 years ago

What is it about this particular environment that allows this mutation (i.e., larger in size) to survive here, but no where else in the world?

Also, in theory, could it be even larger, or is there some limit to how large a bee could be?

pvaldes• 7 years ago

Oh, Is the damned planet earth. Is doing this things everywhere since millions of years. Bigger, faster and with more teeth.

There is a limit to how large an insect can be. Couldn't breath effectively with the body mass of a retriever (fortunately).

0xcafecafe• 7 years ago

I remember reading somewhere that sometime in the prehistoric era when earth was more oxygen rich, giant insects were abound.

https://earthsky.org/earth/why-were-prehistoric-insects-so-h...

nicoburns• 7 years ago

Insect size tends to be limited by oxygen availabiltiy (since they don't have lungs, and must absorb oxygen passively). Hence why the biggest insects are found in oxygen rich rainforests.

BurningFrog• 7 years ago

I know insects used to be much bigger when the atmosphere had more oxygen.

But I'm very skeptical that there is more oxygen in rain forests. For one thing, I don't think they actually produce more oxygen than they consume, since there is an equilibrium of plant mass being created and being consumed. Also, the planet is quite windy.

Still, I'm interested in seeing any evidence to the contrary!

vertline3• 7 years ago

Maybe related to Island Giganticism, and also Island Dwarfism (foster's rule).

thaumasiotes5• 7 years ago

What vertline3 said. This would appear to be island gigantism. An island is small and not well connected to the rest of the world, so the organisms that do happen to be there often adapt into different niches than their mainland origin species, since whatever would normally fill that niche isn't around.

paulpauper• 7 years ago

it would probably hurt like hell to be stung by it

gorkemcetin• 7 years ago

And its size is comparable to a domestic pussycat.

bitwize• 7 years ago

Ohhh, you haven't seen nothing until you've seen the Asian giant hornet. Nearly two inches long, with a quarter-inch-long stinger that's gauranteed to cause immense pain, and may kill you even if you're not allergic. These insects are as vicious as they are huge. If just one invades a honeybee hive, it turns the hive into an insect-scale scene from Attack on Titan, forcing its way in through the entrance, slaughtering bees left and right with one snip from its mandibles. European honeybees have no defense, but Japanese honeybees can defeat a single hornet by surrounding it with a ball of bees which vibrate their wings until the hornet overheats and dies -- and even then many bees inside the ball will be lost. If the single scout hornet makes it out alive, it will return -- with friends. Even a hive of tens of thousands of bees cannot mount an effective defense against just a few hornets, and the hornets will lay waste to the colony in a matter of hours.

Nature is a merciless bitch, and some of her creatures are downright horrifying.

DigitalVerse• 7 years ago

Alternate title: "Bee finally declared winner of world's longest running game of hide and seek!"

vbuwivbiu• 7 years ago

"38 year old bee loses game of hide and seek"

angel_j• 7 years ago

I've seen carpenter bees in California as big as that.

simplecomplex• 7 years ago

Here in Northern California there’s Carpenter bees that big. I see them all the time...

World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years

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