Scientist Dr. Kit Prendergast discovered a new bee with a dog-like snout. Dr. Prendergast from the Curtin School of Molecular and Life Sciences in Perth, Australia, was surveying native bee species at Perth’s Kings Park botanic garden when she came across this beautiful new creation.
To Dr. Prendergast’s surprise, she had never seen a bee like this before. The Perth’s Western Australian Museum’s taxonomists said it was probably a new species.
In an article published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, Dr. Prendergast reveals her full findings about the bee she discovered. Since Dr. Prendergast was the person who discovered the new bee, she gets to name the new species, which she named Leioproctus Zephyr.
“Not only is this species fussy, they also have a clypeus that looks like a snout. Hence, I named them after my dog Zephyr,” she shared. “She has been so important to my mental health and well-being during the challenging period of doing a Ph.D. and beyond.”
“They’ve got this flower structure where the petals have sort of a keel, and inside the keel is the nectar and pollen, and it needs to be pushed open to access those rewards,” she explains. “It seems like this snout in the middle of its face is used to push up in the keel so it can easily access the nectar.”
