Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer is a newly described native leaf-cutter bee found in Western Australia’s Bremer Ranges. Its most striking feature is a pair of horns on the front of the female’s head; males do not have them. The bee was first encountered during a 2019 survey for a rare plant, but the observations do not establish that it is an exclusive or proven pollinator of that plant.
What is the Lucifer bee?
Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer is a species of leaf-cutter bee in the family Megachilidae. Kit S. Prendergast and Joshua W. Campbell formally described it in a 2025 peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research. The description is based on both females and males. The paper’s record and abstract provide the scientific account.
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The discovery began with an unusual-looking female. Researchers compared specimens with museum collections, and CO1 DNA barcoding confirmed that the collected male and female belonged to the same species; the reported sequence did not match previously barcoded species.
Why is it called lucifer?
Lead author Dr Kit Prendergast said the name was inspired by the female’s horned face. In a Curtin University release, she explained that lucifer means “light-bringer” and recounted that the name also appealed to her while she was watching the Netflix show Lucifer. The pop-culture connection is her naming anecdote; the scientific description identifies the distinctive horns as a defining feature.
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Do female Lucifer bees have horns?
Yes. Females have two outward- and upward-facing convex horns, one on either side of the clypeus—the plate at the front of the head. The paper describes the horns as female-only, so a male without them can still be M. lucifer.
The horns’ function has not been established. The authors say the species’ description creates an opportunity for future research into how the structures function and evolved.
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Where was the bee discovered?
The bee is known from Western Australia’s Bremer Ranges, in the Goldfields region. Curtin describes the Bremer Range region as lying between Norseman and Hyden. Prendergast’s account, republished by the University of Southern Queensland, says she first encountered the bee in 2019 while surveying pollinators of Marianthus aquilonarius, a rare plant. Her account of the discovery describes the fieldwork and identification.
What plants has it been observed with?
The scientific paper reports visits to the range-restricted, Critically Endangered plant Marianthus aquilonarius. It also reports that specimens of the bee were collected only during mass-flowering of Eucalyptus livida. These observations document flower visitation and collection context; they do not by themselves prove that the bee pollinates either plant, or that it depends exclusively on M. aquilonarius.
Is Megachile lucifer endangered?
The cited sources do not establish a formal threatened-species listing or a measured population decline for M. lucifer. The authors say it may be of conservation concern because its known distribution is limited, its activity period is short, it occurs in association with a Critically Endangered plant, and the region is subject to mining. Curtin’s release also reports the lead author’s concern about disturbance and climate change. The plant’s Critically Endangered status should not be mistaken for a threat listing for the bee.
There is no population or abundance estimate for M. lucifer in these accounts. Its documented range and ecology are therefore not enough to quantify how many bees remain or how its population may be changing.
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Why does the discovery matter?
Finding and formally describing a bee makes it possible to recognize it in future surveys and investigate its ecology. Prendergast told Curtin: “Without knowing which native bees exist and what plants they depend on, we risk losing both before we even realise they’re there.” For this species, the next questions include the function of the females’ horns, the extent of its range and the details of its relationships with flowering plants.
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