Redevelopment of the Giant Bee after its disappearance in 1981
The University of Sydney, Australia, has recorded and documented the "Giant Bee" in Indonesia, which was last seen in 1981, before disappearing.
The bee is known as Megashil Pluto, or "Giant Wallace Bee," and was named after the discovery by British biologist Alfred Russell Wallace.
A statement on the university said on Thursday that the "giant bee" was seen January on the island of "North Moluccas" Indonesia, by an international research team, during a mission to search for rare species of insects.
"With the remarkable decline in insect species, it is great to discover that this bee has not died," said Simon Robson, emeritus professor at the Institute of Life Sciences and the Environment.
The wing of the bee is two and a half inches long, and is the largest in the world, and lay eggs in nests, and found by the team on a tree height of 8 feet, according to the statement.
The leader of the expedition, Isawan, alerted the bee after he spotted a movement on the tree, climbing it with Ellie Wyman, an insect scientist at the University of Preston, after they realized that what they saw was a bee nest.
"The structure of the nest was strong, the tree climbed, and my lights lit up something remarkable that I had never seen before. I could not believe what I saw," said photographer Clay Bolt, on a WWF website in Austin. "He said.
The team traveled to Indonesia last January, the same period that Wallace saw in 1981, according to the University of Sydney, was found on the last day of the five-day trip in the region.
"We have rediscovered this bee, but we do not yet know anything about this unusual insect," said Wyman. "I hope this discovery will help launch new research that will allow us to delve into the details of this type of bee to protect it from extinction.
