A new bee species discovered in Australia has earned the name \u201cLucifer\u201d thanks to its tiny devil-like \u201chorns.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dr. Kit Prendergast of the Curtin School of Molecular and Life Sciences is being credited with the find<\/a>, which he said was made while surveying a rare plant in Western Australia\u2019s Goldfields. <\/p>\n Officially named, Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer, the name is inspired by the female bee\u2019s unusual horned face. DNA barcoding confirmed the male and female were the same species and that it didn\u2019t match any known bees in DNA databases. <\/p>\n \u201cThe female had these incredible little horns on her face,\u201d Prendergast said in a statement. \u201cWhen writing up the new species description I was watching the Netflix show Lucifer at the time, and the name just fit perfectly. I am also a huge fan of the Netflix character Lucifer so it was a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the first new member of this bee group to be described in more than 20 years, which really shows how much life we still have to discover \u2013 including in areas that are at risk of mining, such as the Goldfields.\u201d<\/p>\n The horns, each measured at about 0.9 millimeters long, could be used to access flowers and other resources and defend nests, but their exact functions remain unclear. Especially because the males don\u2019t have them. <\/p>\n Australia has around 2,000 native bee species, hundreds of which haven\u2019t been named, according to CSIRO<\/a>, an Australian national science agency.<\/p>\n Dr. Prendergast said the discovery highlighted the importance of understanding native bees before their habitats are disturbed.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause the new species was found in the same small area as the endangered wildflower, both could be at risk from habitat disturbance and other threatening processes like climate change,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cMany mining companies still don\u2019t survey for native bees, so we may be missing undescribed species, including those that play crucial roles in supporting threatened plants and ecosystems. Without knowing which native bees exist and what plants they depend on, we risk losing both before we even realise they\u2019re there.\u201d<\/p>\n The publication of the research coincides with Australian Pollinator Week<\/a>, an annual celebration of the crucial role bees, butterflies and other insects play in maintaining healthy ecosystems and food production.<\/p>\n The research was supported by the Atlas of Living Australia, the Goldfields Environmental Management Group and the USDA Agricultural Research Service and was published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new bee species discovered in Australia has earned the name \u201cLucifer\u201d thanks to its tiny devil-like \u201chorns.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-286222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}