As if deadly snakes, spiders, and sharks weren\u2019t enough, Australia has now revealed a new intriguing insect: a \u201clucifer\u201d bee with devil-like horns. The species, named Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer, was discovered in Western Australia, Curtin University announced on Tuesday. Kit Prendergast, from the university\u2019s School of Molecular and Life Sciences, first came across the bee in 2019 while surveying a critically endangered wildflower. She was immediately struck by the insect\u2019s unusual appearance. \u201cThe female had these remarkable little horns on her face,\u201d Prendergast said. A fan of the Netflix series \u201cLucifer,\u201d she felt the name perfectly suited the bee\u2019s devilish features. \u201cThis is the first new member of this bee group to be described in more than 20 years, which highlights how much biodiversity is still waiting to be discovered,\u201d Prendergast added. She also expressed hope that the discovery would raise awareness about the many undiscovered species that may still exist, particularly in regions threatened by mining activities. “Many mining companies still don’t survey for native bees, so we may be missing undescribed species, including those that play crucial roles in supporting threatened plants and ecosystems,” she said. “Without knowing which native bees exist and what plants they depend on, we risk losing both before we even realise they’re there.” Almost all flowering plants depend on wild pollinators, particularly bees, but habitat loss and climate change are driving many vital species to the brink of extinction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As if deadly snakes, spiders, and sharks weren\u2019t enough, Australia has now revealed a new intriguing insect: a \u201clucifer\u201d bee with devil-like horns. The species,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28815,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}