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Seventy-one new Australian bee species have been discovered thanks to a team of Australian researchers, featuring Environment Institute member Dr Katja Hogendoorn. The new species belong to the resin pot bees (Megachile (Austrochile)), a group unique to Australia and found across the mainland. These bees build protective resin pots for their offspring, with mother bees who hold onto individual parts of the trees such as the branch or bark.

Thanks to partnerships such as Bush Blitz, a collaboration between the Australian Government, BHP Billiton, and Earth Watch Australia that documents the flora and fauna found in national reserves and funds the identification of new species. This enabled the researchers to compare their newly collected bees with those already held in Australian entomological collections.

Previously, only seven species were known, with another 41 were discovered since 1992. Dr Remko Leijs, lead author from the South Australian Museum, explains “This research has uncovered an additional 20 undescribed species, hidden in the collections, which highlights the importance of entomological collections as a repository for these kinds of discoveries”.

Dr Katja Hogendoorn says there is so much to learn and uncover about Australia’s bees and their vital role they play as pollinators, “Despite their environmental and economic importance as pollinators of native plants and crops, the Australian bee fauna is poorly understood,” she says.

This latest research brings the total number of known resin pot bees to 78, nearly half found from a single location. Australia has around 1700 known native bee species, Dr Hogendoorn warns that about one-third of bee species remains unknown to science, and the scarcity of funding for taxonomic work makes it difficult to determine their conservation needs and implement protective measures. Dr Hogendoorn expresses concern that “We may be losing species that we don’t even know about yet.”

Read the full study here in the

University of ���˲�Ʊ Newsroom media release