Tag: Bees

Franklin-Hummel (Bombus franklini)
Female morphotype specimen of Franklin's bumblebee: collected on May 20, 1972 west of Oregon City. The specimen is preserved in the entomology collection of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (© USNMENT01006817 - Bombus franklini (Frison, 1921) Collected in United States of America, CC0 1.0, via GBIF)

Franklin’s Bumblebee—the first extinct bumblebee in North America?

Franklin’s bumblebee had the unfortunate distinction of having the smallest range of all bumblebee species in North America—and probably even worldwide. It occurred only in a narrow strip between the Pacific coast and the mountain ranges of the Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range to the east, in southern Oregon

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Größenvergleich Megachile pluto und Apis mellifera
Size comparison: Wallace's giant bee Megachile pluto and Western honey bee Apis mellifera (© Abalg with File:Megachile pluto.jpg and File:1911 Britannica - Bee - Apis mellifica.png, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Lazarus effect: Wallace’s giant bee, thought extinct, rediscovered

When a species thought to be extinct reappears, this is known as the Lazarus effect. That is exactly what happened with Wallace’s giant bee (Megachile pluto)—in fact, twice already: after the species was rediscovered for the first time in 1981, a research team has now rediscovered the thumb-sized insect on

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