Scientists discovered 26 new bee species in the Australian Outback

Bees are our friends for thousands of years and yet we don‘t know too much about them. Scientists are estimating that around one third of bee species are still not known, named or described. A good illustration to this is the fact that South Australian researchers have discovered 26 new species of native bees. Scientists say that a lot of native Australian bees are still to be discovered.

Scientists are estimating that only around two-thirds of Australian bee species are known to science. It means that one third is still out there to be discovered. Previously it has been believed that the subgenus Colletellus contained a single species only. However, now scientists working in the outback of South Australia have discovered 26 new species belonging to the subgenus Colletellus in the genus Leioproctus in the family Colletidae. This further emphasizes the point that bees need to be researched more, because despite having a tremendous environmental and economic importance as pollinators, native Australian bees are still not very well known.

These newly discovered species are of the silk bee variety. Silk bees are quite interesting – they are named this way because they cover the inside of their nest with self-produced silk to protect their offspring. These are wild bees, which are very important for pollinating various wild plants in the Southern Australia. However, without knowing the exact species that exists, scientists cannot monitor their populations and the dynamics of these ecosystems. Dr Katja Hogendoorn, one of the researcher from the study, said: ““This lack of knowledge of the taxonomy, distribution and population dynamics of Australian native bees, and of invertebrates in general, affects our ability to assess the conservation status and undertake action to protect native bees”.

It is also quite interesting how scientists discovered these new species. Of course, they were catching bees in the wild, but then they were comparing them to the ones in Australian entomological collections. You may think that newly discovered species were found in the wild, but actually scientists found them hidden in the collections. And although describing 26 new species is a great achievement, it is not even close to all species of bees in Australia. Currently there are about 1650 known species in Australia. Many of these bees have not been caught in decades so their conservation status is unknown.

Bees are extremely important for us and we still don’t know them very well. Hopefully researches like this are going to illustrate this problem and encourage more bee research to press forward across the globe.

Source: University of Adelaide