Megachile pluto is a very large
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
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resinResin is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees. It is valued for its chemical constituents and uses, such as varnishes and adhesives, as an important source of raw materials for organic synthesis, or for incense and perfume. Fossilized resins are the source of amber...
beeBees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
(a leafcutter bee that uses resin to make compartments in its nest). As females can be as large as 39 mm (1.5") long with a wingspan of 63 mm (2.5"),
Megachile pluto is regarded as the largest bee in the world, and has been referred to as
Wallace's Giant Bee. Males only grow to about 23 mm (0.9") long.
Megachile pluto was first discovered in Indonesia in 1859 by the naturalist
Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
.
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Megachile pluto is a very large
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n
resinResin is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees. It is valued for its chemical constituents and uses, such as varnishes and adhesives, as an important source of raw materials for organic synthesis, or for incense and perfume. Fossilized resins are the source of amber...
beeBees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
(a leafcutter bee that uses resin to make compartments in its nest). As females can be as large as 39 mm (1.5") long with a wingspan of 63 mm (2.5"),
Megachile pluto is regarded as the largest bee in the world, and has been referred to as
Wallace's Giant Bee. Males only grow to about 23 mm (0.9") long.
Megachile pluto was first discovered in Indonesia in 1859 by the naturalist
Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
. It was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 1981 by Adam C. Messer, an American Entomologist, who found six nests on the island of
Bacan.Bacan refers to a group of islands in the Maluku Islands of Indonesia and to that group's largest island. The islands are mountainous and forested. The islands lies south of Ternate and west of Halmahera's southernmost arm. The second and third largest islands are Kasiruta and Mandioli...
and other nearby islands.
Megachile pluto build their nests inside active
termiteThe termites are a group of eusocial insects usually classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera . Along with ants and some bees and wasps which are all placed in the separate order Hymenoptera, termites divide labour among gender lines, produce overlapping generations and take care of...
nests, which explains why even island residents were unaware of the bee's existence.