The world’s largest bee has been rediscovered, more than 160 years after it was first seen on a tropical Indonesian island. The giant insect is as long as an adult’s thumb, and not a single one of them had been seen since 1981. Known as Wallace’s giant bee, a team of scientists found a single live female during an expedition to Indonesia’s North Moluccas islands in January. Several specimens of the bee were next found in 1981, but it had not been seen since until the 2019 expedition. Photographer Clay Bolt snaps a living Wallace’s giant bee at its nest (Simon Robson/PA)Clay Bolt, one of the scientists on the expedition, described seeing the “flying bulldog” of an insect in the wild was “breathtaking”.

Source: Irish Examiner February 21, 2019 15:45 UTC