Instagram selfie accidentally triggers race-against-time discovery of a new giant waterlily species already facing extinction

From the Newshound archive · first published 9 October 2026 · last updated 10 October 2026.

Carlos Magdalena, a botanical horticulturist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, came across an Instagram selfie posted by Jeremiah Harris — a US carnivorous plant nursery owner — showing Harris swimming among giant waterlilies in Colombia's Inírida River, and immediately sensed something was off. Victoria amazonica does not grow in that region, so Magdalena spent years combing satellite imagery before joining a gruelling five-day trek into the Colombian rainforest. With only 10 hours left before their return flight, a tip from their Indigenous Tucano boatman, Gustavo Melo, guided the team by boat through the dark to a small lake where they located the flowering specimens they had been searching for.

The new species, Victoria colombiana, can grow up to two metres across — large enough to be visible from space.

Conservationists warn it is already critically endangered, with no more than 50 individual plants believed to exist in the wild.

Harris had wrongly labelled the waterlily as the common Victoria amazonica in his Instagram caption, unaware his selfie would trigger the find.