Australia has discovered a new ‘Lucifer’ insect with diabolical horns.

According to a recent study, the female bee may employ its upward-pointing horns to defend nests, compete for resources, and get access to flowers.

A new species of native bee has been discovered by Australian scientists. It has tiny, devil-like horns, which have given it the humorously devilish nickname “lucifer.”

According to a report released Monday in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, researchers found Megachile lucifer in 2019 while studying a severely endangered wildflower in Western Australia’s Goldfields.

According to Kit Prendergast, the study’s lead author and an adjunct research fellow at Curtin University, the term was inspired by the female bee’s incredibly recognizable upward-pointing horns on her face.

“I was watching the Netflix series Lucifer while I was writing up the new species description,” Prendergast said in a statement on Tuesday. “The name was a fantastic fit.”

Researchers said the species was the first new member of this group to be described in over 20 years after a DNA test revealed it did not match any known bees in databases.

Although their precise purposes are yet unknown, researchers hypothesized that the horns, which are each roughly 0.9 millimeters long, could be employed to protect nests, compete for resources, and gain access to flowers. The species’ male bees lack the horns.

Prendergast stated that the new species may be threatened by habitat disturbance and other dangerous processes, such as climate change, and that the discovery underscored the importance of studying local bees.

“We risk losing both before we even realize they are there if we do not know which native bees exist and what plants they depend on,” she said.

According to CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, there are about 2,000 native bee species in the country, more than 300 of which have not yet been given scientific names and descriptions.

Tobias Smith, a bee researcher at the University of Queensland, told via email on Tuesday that the nation’s native bees are “understudied and data deficient,” which results in a lack of understanding on the conservation status of “virtually all species.”

According to Smith, who is not involved in the study, Australian authorities need “stronger rules” to safeguard native bees from habitat loss, improper fire regimes, and higher threats from megafires.

He urged Australians to “go outside and seek for some native bees and admire them,” according to Smith.

😈 The “Lucifer” Bee

• Scientific Name: Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer
• Common Name: Often called the “Lucifer” bee due to the prominent, horn-like features on the female’s face. The researcher who named it was also a fan of the TV show Lucifer. The name lucifer is Latin for “light-bringer,” which also highlights the need to shed light on undiscovered species.
• Discovery Location: It was found in the Goldfields region of Western Australia, specifically in the Bremer Range.
• Key Feature: The female bee has tiny, highly distinctive, prominent horns on her face (clypeus). The function of these horns is not yet definitively known, but they may be used for defense, collecting pollen or nectar, or gathering materials like resin for nests.
• Significance: It’s the first new member of this specific group of bees (Hackeriapis subgenus) to be described in over 20 years, underscoring how much biodiversity is still undiscovered in Australia, particularly in areas threatened by mining and climate change.

This discovery highlights the critical importance of native pollinators and the need for comprehensive surveys to protect biodiversity in vulnerable habitats.