New 'Devilish' Bee Species Discovered in Australia

A scientist discovered a new bee species. It has tiny horns on its head. The scientist is a bee ecologist. Her name is Dr Kit Prendergast. She named the bee Megachile lucifer. "Lucifer" is another name for the Devil.

Dr Prendergast found the bee while she was studying an endangered flower in Australia. She gave the bee its name because of its horns. She said: "These horns are very...devilish. I wanted to call it a devil-like name." She added: "Lucifer means 'light bringer' in Latin. I want to bring light to issues around the lack of conservation of native bees."

Australia has more than 2,000 species of bees. Bee experts say that hundreds of them have not been named yet. Prendergast said there are many bee species in Australia that we do not know about. She said: "We don't know their distribution or where they nest."

The Lucifer bee is the first new kind of its bee group to be found in over 20 years. Prendergast said there was a lot of "life we still have to discover". She is worried that the new bee "could be at risk from habitat disturbance" and other "threatening" events like climate change.