Bees have played a crucial role in terrestrial ecosystems for millions of years, pollinating…

Bees have played a crucial role in terrestrial ecosystems for millions of years, pollinating flowers long before humans began agriculture. However, reconstructing their evolutionary history has been challenging due to the scarcity of bee fossils. Recently, researchers in Japan have identified a new fossil species of honey bee, dating back 2.8 to 2.2 million years, during a period of significant climatic changes leading to the Pleistocene glaciations. This discovery, published in ZooKeys, adds a new species to the evolutionary tree of bees and fills a nearly two-million-year gap in the fossil record of the genus Apis.