{"id":587930,"date":"2026-08-09T12:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T12:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/587930\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T12:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T12:24:11","slug":"panda-of-the-insect-world-the-moscardon-bumblebee-creates-buzz-for-invertebrate-of-the-year-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/587930\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Panda of the insect world\u2019: the moscard\u00f3n bumblebee creates buzz for invertebrate of the year | Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all love bumblebees. Not only are they beautiful, busy and social, they perform pollination services that are crucial for plants, crops and human civilisation.<\/p>\n

Any bumblebee would be a worthy winner of invertebrate of the year but a gorgeous giant ginger bumblebee fondly known as the flying mouse? Come on!<\/p>\n

There are about 250 species of bumblebee and Bombus dahlbomii<\/a> is the largest. The gloriously furry females can measure 4cm in length. These unusually heavy-bodied bumbles, weighing up to 1.5g, are found flying in the temperate forest-clad mountains of Patagonia, in Argentina and Chile.<\/p>\n

Bombus dahlbomii is being outcompeted by the European buff-tailed bumblebee, which was introduced for fruit tree pollination. Photograph: Michael Grant Wildlife\/Alamy<\/p>\n

As a Patagonian endemic, the bumblebee is an important pollinator of native plants such as the Peruvian lily (Alstroemeria aurea) and the Chilean bellflower (Lapageria rosea). The latter is red, which most bees cannot see, so they typically avoid red flowers. But the moscard\u00f3n visits them because it uses a special receptor system to detect and distinguish the colour red. Its furry appearance is due to long bristles that cover the thorax and abdomen.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the magnificent moscard\u00f3n is threatened by human actions that go beyond the usual habitat loss and destruction. Populations have rapidly declined since the introduction of two non-native invasive European bumblebees<\/a>, the ruderal bumblebee (Bombus ruderatus) and the buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), which have been imported to Chile since the 1980s to assist commercial agricultural pollination. These species may be much loved in their natural environments, but in Chile and Argentina they have rapidly spread, not only outcompeting Bombus dahlbomii but bringing in novel pathogens and diseases that are decimating populations of the native bumble.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s terrible news for the web of life that intersects with Bombus dahlbomii, from native flowers to other endemic species such as mites that live on the giant bumble. But the invasive bumblebees are also helping invasive non-native plant species from Europe, such as broom, spread more rapidly. Today, the invasive bees are too widespread to be eradicated. When will we learn?<\/p>\n

Bombus dahlbomii received a fabulous nomination from the researcher Anton Gradi\u0161ek in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a partner in an academic project developing bioacoustics<\/a> \u2013 the analysis of sound recordings \u2013 to better study the endangered bumblebee. \u201cWhen we were out in the field, we saw only a handful of them,\u201d he says. \u201cBumblebees are the pandas of the insect world, and a mascot for biodiversity conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s invertebrate of the year again! From 3-12 August, every day we will profile one of the thousands of amazing invertebrates that our readers have nominated. And then, when you\u2019ve heard about all of them, we\u2019ll open the voting so you can choose your favourites. Don\u2019t hesitate to get in touch with thoughts and ideas: email us at environment.desk@theguardian.com<\/a> with Invertebrate in the subject line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We all love bumblebees. Not only are they beautiful, busy and social, they perform pollination services that are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":["post-587930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}