A scientist, Dr Kit Prendergast, found a new bee species. It has tiny horns on its head. Dr Prendergast named the bee Megachile lucifer. "Lucifer" is a name for the Devil. 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. She wants to bring light to issues around conservation and saving bees.
Australia has 2,000 species of bees. The new bee is one of hundreds that have not been found. Prendergast said there are many bee species we do not know about. The Lucifer bee is the first new kind of its bee group to be found in 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". This is because of a loss of habitat and "threatening" events like climate change.
Try the same news story at these levels:
Bees - Level 0, Bees - Level 2 or Bees - Level 3
Sources- https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/animals/megachili-hackeriapis-lucifer-new-bee-species-discovered-near-bremer-range-region-c-20631937
- https://au.news.yahoo.com/discovered-australian-native-bee-still-190930895.html
- https://phys.org/news/2025-11-devilishly-distinctive-bee-species-western.html
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