While working as a curatorial assistant at the American Museum of Natural History, Eli Wyman learned about a very unusual bee that was presumed to be extinct. The bee, Megachile pluto, also known as Wallace's giant bee, is a massive unit. It is the largest bee in the world, four times larger than a honeybee and measuring about the length of a human thumb.
Huge mandibles hang like dastardly garden shears from its head. Or, at least, did — the bee hadn't been seen alive since 1981 and was feared lost. "I just thought 'someday I've got to go to look for this bee.' It's a sort of unicorn in the bee world," Wyman says. "If you love bees, as I do," he added, "this is the greatest possible adventure to have."
