NBC News – Scientists in Australia have identified a new species of native bee with tiny, devil-like horns that have earned it a playfully hellish name – “lucifer.”
The species, Megachile lucifer, was discovered by scholars surveying a critically endangered wildflower in Western Australia’s Goldfields in 2019, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research.
The highly distinctive, upward-pointing horns on the female bee’s face inspired its name, said Kit Prendergast, lead author of the study and an adjunct research fellow at Curtin University.
“When writing up the new species description[,] I was watching the Netflix show Lucifer,” Prendergast said in a statement Tuesday. “The name just fit perfectly.”
A DNA test later showed that the species didn’t match any known bees in existing databases, making it the first new member of this group to be described in more than 20 years, researchers said.
The horns, each measured at about 0.9 millimeters long, could be used to access flowers, compete for resources, and defend nests, researchers suggested, though their exact functions remain unclear. The species’ male bees lack the horns.
The discovery highlighted the need to study native bees, Prendergast said, adding that the new species could be at risk from habitat disturbance and other threatening processes like climate change.
“Without knowing which native bees exist and what plants they depend on, we risk losing both before we even realize they’re there,” she said.
Australia has around 2,000 native bee species, more than 300 of which are yet to be scientifically named and described, according to CSIRO, an Australian national science agency.
The country’s native bees are “understudied and data poor,” leading to a lack of knowledge on the conservation status of “almost all species,” Tobias Smith, a bee researcher at the University of Queensland, told NBC News in an email Tuesday.
Australian authorities need “stronger policies” to protect native bees from habitat loss, inappropriate fire regimes, and increased risks from megafires, said Smith, who is not involved in the study.
Smith said he encouraged Australians to “get outside and look for some native bees and appreciate them.”
