WEBVTT - What Is the World's Largest Bee?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, around two hundred and eighty

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<v Speaker 1>five million years ago, if you had been walking through

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<v Speaker 1>a Permian floodplain, you might have seen a griffin fly

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<v Speaker 1>dragonfly like insect the size of a crow. It was huge,

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<v Speaker 1>partly because atmospheric oxygen during this time was something like

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<v Speaker 1>thirty it's down around today, And it turns out that

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<v Speaker 1>the amount of oxygen present in the atmosphere is the

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<v Speaker 1>limiting factor in how big a bug can get. Although

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<v Speaker 1>we no longer have dragonflies flying around with two foot

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<v Speaker 1>wingspans that's over half a meter, there are some standouts

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<v Speaker 1>among modern insects. Take Wallace's giant b a taxonomical name

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<v Speaker 1>Mega chile pluto. It's the world's largest B. Females of

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<v Speaker 1>the species can grow up to the size of an

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<v Speaker 1>adult humans thumb that's about one and a half inches

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<v Speaker 1>long or nearly forty millimeters, with a wingspan of two

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<v Speaker 1>and a half inches or over sixty millimeters. That's about

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<v Speaker 1>five times the size of the European honeybees you're used

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<v Speaker 1>to seeing. The females also have large mandibles used for

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<v Speaker 1>scraping up tree resin to line their nests, but it

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<v Speaker 1>was recently thought to have gone the way of the

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<v Speaker 1>griffin fly. Nobody had seen Wallace's giant bee since nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>eighty one, and before that no scientists had clapped eyes

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<v Speaker 1>on it since its discovery in eighteen fifty eight by

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<v Speaker 1>Alfred Russell Wallace, the English biologist who independently conceived of

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<v Speaker 1>the theory of evolution through natural selection at the same

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<v Speaker 1>time as Charles Darwin. Of course, researchers knew this didn't

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<v Speaker 1>necessarily mean it was extinct. It's just very difficult to

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<v Speaker 1>prove that an organism exists if you can't find it alive.

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<v Speaker 1>But in January of twenty nineteen, a team of researchers

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<v Speaker 1>traveled to a collection of little islands in Indonesia called

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<v Speaker 1>the North Malaccas, and they found this be beheemoth nesting

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<v Speaker 1>in a termite nest on a tree trunk. Clay Bolt,

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<v Speaker 1>a natural history photographer who captured the first photos and

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<v Speaker 1>video of a live giant bee, said in a press release,

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<v Speaker 1>to actually see how beautiful and big the species is

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<v Speaker 1>in life, to hear the sound of its giant wings

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<v Speaker 1>thrumming as it flew past my head was just incredible.

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<v Speaker 1>Over the years, a few research expeditions had set out

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<v Speaker 1>to find Wallace's Giant bee, but they came up empty handed.

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<v Speaker 1>In the meantime, however, specimens would show up for sale.

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<v Speaker 1>One appeared on eBay in the auction for nine thousand

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<v Speaker 1>one dollars. In case you were wondering, that's more than

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<v Speaker 1>what the corpse of an insect usually goes for. The

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<v Speaker 1>exact island on which the bee was found is a

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<v Speaker 1>secret because the researchers fear that if they published that information,

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<v Speaker 1>the remaining Wallace's Giant bees might not be long for

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<v Speaker 1>this world given that type of auction price tag. Since

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<v Speaker 1>the bee has only been viewed a few times in

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<v Speaker 1>the wild, not much is known about its habits in

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<v Speaker 1>life history, other than that it seems to like to

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<v Speaker 1>live in termite nests in lowland forest areas. Indonesia lost

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<v Speaker 1>fift of its tree cover between two thousand one seventeen

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<v Speaker 1>to make way for agricultural fields, So our rekindled romance

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<v Speaker 1>with Wallace's Giant b might not last long if conservation

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<v Speaker 1>efforts aren't put in place soon. But in the meantime,

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<v Speaker 1>it's nice to know that Wallace's Giant B is still

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<v Speaker 1>buzzing through the forest like a tiny helicopter the giant

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<v Speaker 1>griffin flies of the Permian. Shirley would have wanted it

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<v Speaker 1>that way. Today's episode is based on the article Wallace's

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<v Speaker 1>Giant B World's largest Rediscovered on house to forks dot com,

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<v Speaker 1>written by Jesslin Shields. Brain Stuff is a production of

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<v Speaker 1>by Heart Radio in partnership with house toworks dot com,

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<v Speaker 1>and it is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts

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<v Speaker 1>my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite show else