One Instagram selfie found a plant you can see from space. Why are only 50 left?

A plant seller from the US went swimming in a Colombian river and took a selfie. Huge round leaves floated all around him.

He posted it on Instagram. Three years later, that selfie is the reason the world has a new species of giant waterlily.

The plant is called Victoria colombiana. Its leaves are so large they can be seen from space. And the people who found it say there may be only 30 to 50 of them left in the wild.

Who took the plant selfie?

Jeremiah Harris. He runs a nursery in the US that sells carnivorous plants, the kind that eat insects.

The Guardian reported the story on 9 October. Harris took the photo in the Inírida River in Guainía, in Colombia. He thought the lilies around him were Victoria amazonica, the common giant waterlily. He had no idea what he had found.

Harris says his friends always teased him for taking selfies with plants. Now he is an author on the paper that names the new species. He called it "incredible".

Why did one photo catch a Kew scientist's eye?

Carlos Magdalena is a waterlily expert at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. The Guardian says he is world-renowned. He was scrolling Instagram when he saw Harris's photo.

He "immediately suspected" something was off. The common giant waterlily does not grow naturally in the Inírida River. So the plant could not be what Harris thought it was.

He messaged Harris to find the exact spot. Then the hard part began.

Photo: Bilby / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

How long did it take to prove it?

Years. Magdalena spent them studying satellite images of the area. He also had to raise money and get the permits to go into the forest.

Here is the timeline from the Guardian's report.

Source: The Guardian, 9 October 2026. The report does not give the dates of the trip.

What happened on the trip into the jungle?

The team went deep into the flooded rainforest. For several days, they found nothing.

Then, right at the last moment, their driver told them where to look. There were only 10 hours left until the flight home.

So they sailed overnight, in total darkness, to a small lake deep in the flooded forest. There they found a whole group of the lilies.

Magdalena said it was so emotional he shed a tear. He called the moment "jaw dropping".

How big is a giant waterlily?

Giant waterlilies can measure up to three metres across. The Guardian says the leaves can carry the weight of a small child.

They are also among the oldest flowering plants still alive. They existed before the continents split apart, according to the report. They show up in culture from ancient Egypt to the paintings of Monet.

Photo: Vinayaraj / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Until now, scientists knew of just three other kinds. Victoria colombiana is the fourth.

The last one before it was also found by Kew. In 2022 the garden named Victoria boliviana, from Bolivia. It had sat in Kew's collection for 177 years, mistaken for the common species.

Why did nobody notice a plant this big before?

Because it was hiding. The Guardian says the lily had stayed "hidden in the depths" of Colombia's jungle, in a small lake inside flooded forest.

Even the people who set out to find it struggled. They searched for days and came up empty. Harris, who swam right beside the plants, took them for the common species.

It took a team to solve the puzzle. The list includes a plant seller, a Kew expert, a taxonomist, gardeners from Bogotá, members of local indigenous reserves and one boat driver. Take any one of them away and the photo might still be sitting on Instagram, unnoticed.

Why are there only 30 to 50 left?

The team estimates the wild population at between 30 and 50 plants. That is why the Guardian calls it critically endangered.

Maarten Christenhusz, a plant scientist who studied the sample, said new species are found all the time. But few are as large, spectacular and memorable as this one. He said it can even be seen from space.

The team is now working on an official listing on the IUCN Red List, the world's main list of species at risk.

Can the waterlily be saved?

There is a plan. Researchers want to move some plants to a more accessible lake inside indigenous territory. That would make a second group of them, away from the first.

They also want to collect seeds and grow the plant in Bogotá. If that works, there is a chance Victoria colombiana could one day float in a pond at Kew.

Magdalena said the story shows indigenous knowledge, plant growing and social media working together. The local reserves helped with the trip, and the driver's tip saved it.

People build giants too, like Armenia's huge Jesus statue. This giant grew on its own, in a river, with nobody watching.

What if more are out there?

Magdalena had one more thing to say. He said people think they know everything about giant waterlilies, but they do not.

A plant big enough to see from space was hiding in a river, in full view, for who knows how long. It took a swim, a selfie and one stranger on Instagram to notice.

What else is floating out there that nobody has looked at twice?