Paleontologists have introduced the invention of a brand new fossil honeybee species that fills a long-standing hole within the evolutionary report of the genus Apis.
Apis aibai. Picture credit score: Y. Takahashi & J-ichi Takahashi, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1255.162389.
Fossil honeybees are exceedingly uncommon, and most identified specimens come from Oligocene and Miocene deposits in Europe and China, tens of hundreds of thousands of years previous.
Solely a handful of youthful fossils, from the Pleistocene and Holocene, have been discovered, and people belong to still-living species.
The brand new Japanese fossil bee, named Apis aibai, falls squarely between these two clusters, making it each the youngest identified extinct honeybee and the oldest confirmed fossil of the subgenus Apis — the group that features the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera) and its closest kinfolk.
“The honey bee, a normal time period for hymenopteran bugs of the genus Apis (household Apidae), performs a significant position as a pollinator for each pure and agricultural ecosystems,” mentioned Dr. Yui Takahashi from Keio Yochisha Elementary Faculty and Dr. Jun-ichi Takahashi of Kyoto Sangyo College.
“As well as, these bugs keep among the closest ties to human society.”
“There are at the very least 9 current honey bee species and three subgenera (Micrapis, Megapis and Apis) from the genus Apis.”
“The native vary of Apis mellifera covers Europe, Africa, the Center East, Central Asia, and western China, whereas the opposite eight congeners are primarily present in Asia.”
“The distributions of the eight Asian species overlap within the tropical and subtropical zones of South and Southeast Asia, whereas solely the vary of Apis cerana extends northward to the temperate zone.”
“The fossil report of Apis is disproportionately derived from Eocene-Miocene deposits in Europe and China, with only some exceptions from the Pleistocene age.”
The holotype of Apis aibai was recovered from the Teragi Group, a sequence of volcanic and lake-deposited rock layers in Japan’s Hyogo prefecture.
Preserved in whitish, tuff-rich siltstone, the specimen exhibits a employee bee roughly 10 mm lengthy, with wings, hind legs and physique segments clear sufficient to permit detailed comparability with residing honeybee species.
The fossil dates again between 2.8 and a couple of.2 million years in the past (Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene).
Primarily based on wing vein patterns and leg construction, the authors argue that the fossil bears a robust resemblance to Apis nigrocincta, a honeybee species discovered right now solely within the Philippines and Indonesia.
“This means that the Apis nigrocincta-related extinct group, together with the brand new species, traditionally had a wider distribution, ranging to temperate Japan of the Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene age,” the researchers mentioned.
“An fascinating speculation is that the Apis nigrocincta-related extinct group often is the ancestral bees of Apis cerana, which is the one native honey bee species in Japan.”
The invention additionally lends bodily proof to genetic estimates, primarily based on mitochondrial DNA, suggesting the Apis subgenus arose someday within the Late Miocene epoch.
Till now, no fossils had confirmed the group’s presence earlier than the Pleistocene.
“Thus, Apis aibai contributes to bridging the hole between fossil research and genomic estimations,” the scientists concluded.
Their paper was revealed on-line within the journal ZooKeys.
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Y. Takahashi & J-ichi Takahashi. 2025. A honey bee fossil (Hymenoptera, Apidae) from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene Teragi Group, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan: Bridging a spot in Apis evolutionary historical past. ZooKeys 1255: 291-301; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1255.162389
