New species of native bees discovered in Kings Park
Dr Kit Prendergast is passionate about discovering, understanding and protecting Western Australia’s remarkable native bee biodiversity.
Across WA’s parks, bushland, gardens and urban spaces live hundreds of species of native bees. Many are tiny, solitary and easily overlooked.
For Dr Prendergast, making these remarkable creatures visible is an important first step towards protecting them.
“Many people think of honeybees when they hear the word bee, but Australia has an extraordinary diversity of native bees,” she says. “If we want people to protect native bees, we first need them to notice them.”
Dr Prendergast’s work has already brought some of WA’s lesser-known bees into the spotlight.
In 2022, while surveying native bees in Perth’s Kings Park, she discovered a species with a distinctive, dog-like snout. It was subsequently described as Leioproctus zephyr, named after her beloved dog, Zephyr.
In 2025, Dr Prendergast helped describe another remarkable native bee from the Goldfields: Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer, whose females have distinctive devil-like horns. The bee was visiting the critically endangered wildflower Marianthus aquilonaris in the Bremer Range region.
The name Lucifer was inspired by the bee’s unusual appearance. It also means ‘light-bringer’, an apt description of the role discoveries like these can play.
Australia is home to an estimated 1,730 native bee species, with hundreds still undescribed. Each new species discovered draws attention to the extraordinary biodiversity around us and what could be lost before we even know it exists.
Native bees are part of intricate relationships between insects and plants. Through pollination and other ecological interactions, they contribute to the web of life that supports healthy ecosystems. Dr Prendergast’s research has also contributed to understanding the potential impacts of introduced European honeybees on native bees, including competition for floral resources and effects on the reproductive success of some native species.
“We need a greater appreciation for biodiversity,” she says, highlighting the gaps in our knowledge of native bees and the risks posed by losing species and the ecological relationships they support.
Dr Prendergast, who completed her PhD at Curtin University as a Forrest Scholar, was recognised in the Australian Institute of Policy and Science’s ‘2026 Young Tall Poppy Science Awards’ for WA. These honour outstanding early-career scientists who are not only advancing research but also inspiring the wider community through science communication.
Her work is a powerful reminder of the role our parks and natural spaces play in protecting biodiversity. Learning the name of a plant, recognising a bird or discovering a tiny bee living in the bushland beside our home, helps us to recognise a place as a habitat. A living community worth understanding, valuing and protecting.
