It’s more than 30 degrees Celsius in the shade and at least 40 degrees in the sun when we start patrolling the river bank, walking back and forth along the banks. After an hour or two, we are sweating so badly we’re risking dehydration. And then, just as I’m about to take a break and go cool myself down in the river, I see a flash of blue on the opposite bank. It lands on a rock, and that’s it, the strikingly colored clearwing moth I had seen before.

Excited, I try not to run through the river (luckily my camera is waterproof) because I would scare it away. I call Paolo and he comes running with his bigger camera and we both manage to carefully approach the insect and film it simultaneously. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life — there I was, in my dream study location, filming a fascinating and rarely seen insect.

Now I could see more details: transparent wings with a blue sheen in sunlight, hairy white and blue legs and a fully functional, long proboscis — a mouthpart characteristic of butterflies and moths, a feature that gives it away as not being a bee after all. In Southeast Asia, bees come in many colors — blue included — and this sesiid imitates them by having narrow, transparent wings, bright blue bands on the abdomen, elongated scales imitating the fur on bee legs and simple antennae. A predator will think twice before attempting to catch it — it’s not worth the risk of getting stung! The amazing mimicry displayed by clearwing moths is what I love about them most. It’s so good that it allows the sesiid to mud-puddle among bees and wasps, whereas all of the “normal” butterflies stay away!

The video we took was published in Tropical Conservation Science along with the article about the rediscovered species. After detailed morphological analyses, the Oriental Blue Clearwing, as I call it, turned out to be Heterosphecia tawonoides — a species known until now only from a single, more than 130-year-old specimen, the holotype, kept in a museum in Vienna.

We later found several more locations where the species occurs, including areas outside of the National Park. Sadly, directly outside protected areas, the rainforest is being extensively cut down. When monsoon rains come, mud and pollution slides down directly into the river that is the border of the park. When the water level rises drastically, sandy river banks disappear — and along with them so do clearwing moths, bees, wasps and butterflies. The rediscovered species is a beautiful species, yet just one example of Southeast Asia’s rainforest inhabitants. Others include the Malayan Tiger, Leopards, Asian Elephants, Sun Bears, tapirs or hornbills, to name just a few. It is very important to protect not just single species, but entire ecosystems.