No-one’s Ark: Wallace’s Giant Bee
IUCN Status: Vulnerable
This is an extract from Human Nature: How to be a Better Animal, part of Chapter 6’s list of ten animals that I would choose to save first.
Alfred Russel Wallace was a mirror image of Charles Darwin: 15 years his junior, but still white-haired, long-bearded and obsessed with notions of evolution. The differences between the two were small: Wallace wasn’t bald on top and was obsessed with insects, whereas Darwin was a barnacle fanatic. The two of them came together in 1858 in front of a small group of white-haired, bearded, balding British scientists who had gathered to hear them speak.
Wallace had spent many years travelling around the tropics, collecting and observing the creatures that inhabited the region’s steamy rainforests. In doing so, he came to a remarkable realization. A realization that, by chance, had occurred to Darwin himself in his travels, though which he had never published writings on. The notion that had occurred to them both was that of natural selection, the driving force behind evolution. Wallace was a great admirer of Darwin and wrote to him with these thoughts. They co-presented their research, but Darwin’s name lived on in the history books as the great mind who discovered evolution, whilst Wallace was largely forgotten.
Except by scientists, it seems. For despite wearing opaque safety glasses and ridiculous face-shields, scientists pride themselves on attention to detail. And seeing how unfairly Wallace’s name was dropped from public knowledge, they’ve taken it upon themselves to settle the score. Alfred Wallace has a grand total of 390 species bearing his name. Darwin himself has under 300. Whilst Wallace’s passion for insects has caused scores of them to be named after him, Darwin has his name on only one species of barnacle. To mark the latter’s 200th anniversary, a parasite found in the intestines of the short-nosed bandicoot was named in his honour. Revenge is sweet.
As for Wallace’s giant bee, the name says it all. This mega buzzing bulldozer of an animal is five times the size of your common-or-garden honeybee, as large as your thumb. Also unsurprisingly, it was first discovered by Alfred Wallace in his jaunt around the Malay Archipelago. Then it went missing for a century. Then a researcher sighted it briefly, and it blinked out again. Size is everything, and as we learnt in chapter 3, there have been far larger creatures that managed to slip under our radars. A few years back, when the Global Wildlife Conservation charity set up the ‘Search for Lost Species’ campaign, Wallace’s giant bee featured on their hitlist. The hunt was on.
In the dawning new year of 2019, a team set out to find the missing mega-bee. The location and timing of their search were carefully chosen to coincide with previous sightings, but despite their preparation and expert local guidance, the species was a no-show. One member succumbed to illness and had to be evacuated. Those that stayed behind scoured two neighbouring islands, marking and guarding the tree-dwelling termite mounds in which Wallace’s giant bee was known to burrow. Still no results. Finally, drained and defeated, the diminished team set off on the return trip. Walking with the forest on one side and an orchard on the other, they stumbled upon a termite mound with a bee-shaped hole in it. Wallace’s giant bee was not lost after all.
There’s somewhat of a love-hate relationship between people and bees. Some people fear them, being allergic to or just plain terrified of their sting. Others think they’re worth their weight in gold. They’re immensely valuable to farmers in pollinating crops, aside from producing delicious honey. Historically across Europe and the US, households that kept bees would inform them of any major news, and some would be invited to funerals. They’ve been taken to space (flying well in zero gravity), trained to sniff out drugs and explosives, even set aside designated ‘highways’ of flowers to travel across cities. McDonalds made a miniaturized restaurant that functions as a bee-hive and a suite of their stores have continued the tradition with rooftop instalments.
It’s not all good news. Colony Collapse Disorder became a global concern around the turn of the century with bee swarms increasingly and inexplicably abandoning their hives. Speculation suggests anything from pesticides, mites and fungi to malnutrition and pathogens to beekeeping practices like antibiotic use and long-distance transportation may be responsible. Nobody knows, and the chances are that many or all of these factors play a role. A class of pesticides called Neonicotinoids have attracted widespread controversy when it was discovered they were toxic to pollinating bees. The chemicals have been banned across many countries, but mass insecticide usage still takes a large toll on wild populations.
In honour of the mixed relations humans share with all sorts of creatures, Wallace’s giant bee joins me on my ark. Often discoveries pop up in the most unexpected places, as nature’s way of keeping us all on our toes. When a number of beehives in France started producing rainbow honey, few would have suspected a nearby M&M plant was to blame. And when we’ve given up hope, nature can still surprise us as it did with the reappearance of Wallace’s giant bee.
