The adjective “fluffy” shouldn’t be often one which applies to the billions of bugs that decision Earth house. Still, some caterpillars, spiders, and beetles do have longer fuzzy hairs from their many appendages. Now, there’s a new genus of fluffy longhorn beetle in Australia that was discovered by likelihood and a little bit of mistaken identification. The newly discovered Excastra albopilosa (E. albopilosa) is described in a examine printed March 19 in the Australian Journal of Taxonomy.
Excastra was initially discovered by entomologist James Tweed whereas he and his accomplice had been tenting in the rainforests of Queensland, Australia. He initially thought the lower than an inch lengthy critter with its lengthy white and black hairs was a little bit of chook poop.
“I was walking through the campsite at Binna Burra Lodge one morning and something on a Lomandra leaf caught my eye,” Tweed mentioned in an announcement. “To my amazement, I saw the most extraordinary and fluffiest longhorn beetle I had ever seen.” Tweed is an entomologist on the University of Queensland.
After his journey, Tweed combed by way of obtainable books, scientific papers, and on the web to seek out the identify of this species, however his search got here up empty. Some pictures posted to an Australasian beetles Facebook group sparked some curiosity, however even essentially the most seasoned insect identifiers had been stumped.
The Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra formally confirmed that the beetle was not solely a totally new species, however a brand new genus. They chosen the identify Excastra for the genus identify, which suggests “from the camp.” Its species identify albopilosa means “white and hairy.”
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“We don’t yet know what these hairs are for, but our primary theory is that they make the insect look like it’s been killed by an insect-killing fungus,” mentioned Tweed. “This would possibly deter predators such as birds from eating it, but until someone can find more specimens and study this species further, we won’t be able to say for sure why this beetle is so hairy.”
The space the place Excastra was situated has been widespread with entomologists for over a century and Tweed has not seen it on any extra journeys again to the park. These varieties of likelihood discovered spotlight simply what number of unknown species are on the market and what number of could threat going extinct.
“Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet but are also the most underappreciated and understudied,” mentioned Tweed. “Best estimates suggest there may be 5.5 million insect species worldwide and only one-fifth of these have been named and described.”