Friday 10 August 2012

New Bug Species Found in Photos Online


A new species of green lacewing was identified in the Malaysian rainforest after pictures of the delicate insect were posted online.

By chance, a researcher from the California State Collection of Arthropods came across a series of images of an unusual green lacewing on the photo-sharing website Flickr. The insect was not immediately recognizable as any previously described species, the researchers explained in a paper in the journal ZooKeys. Professional taxonomists then analyzed the photos and determined that the winged creature was likely a new species.

Researchers contacted the photographer and collected a female specimen from the Malaysian state of Selangor to formally describe the new species, named Semachrysa jade. An additional female specimen from the same area also was located in the entomology collection of London's Natural History Museum, the researchers said.

No comments:

Post a Comment

You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

ShareThis