The giant lacebird, long thought to be extinct in eastern North America, was recently confirmed to have been rediscovered, years after one was found outside a Walmart store in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 2012. New York times mentioned.
The newspaper described the Jurassic creature as a “dragonfly-like predator,” and noted that it took eight years for the antiquities collector to realize what it was. Michael Skvarla, head of the Insect Identification Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, retrieved the sample during a Zoom class early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
He and the students quickly realized that it was not a lion.
“It didn’t have the antennas as curvy as it should have been,” Skvarla told the channel. times. “He didn't have as many cross veins in the wing as he should have.
“So the immediate question was: What is this thing?”
This was the first time the insect had been found in Arkansas, and the first time it had been documented in eastern North America since the 1950s, according to the British Daily Mail. Study 2022.
Skvarla and co-author J. Ray Fisher speculated that the insect may have disappeared with increased light pollution, less fire smoke (which historical records suggest they like) and the introduction of non-native predators to the area. times mentioned.
On trips back to Walmart and the surrounding forest, Fisher and others found no more giant lacewings, according to the Times.
But disappearing action is not new. Giant garters are not spotted for years or sometimes decades in their habitat in the western United States, Skvarla said. One such species was identified in Chile in 1924, “65 years after the only other known example of this species had been collected.” times advertiser.
It's a familiar story.
In New Zealand, the takah was thought to be extinct for 50 years before it was rediscovered in 1948. There are now about 500 of the colorful birds.
Another fantastical creature, Attenborough's long-billed echidna, was recently observed for the first time in more than 60 years. The chance sighting of an egg-laying hedgehog-like mammal with an anteater's nose occurred in Indonesia.
In Australia, there are efforts to find more Victorian earless dragons in the grasslands after the lizard was first sighted in more than 50 years.
As for the giant lace?
“This discovery suggests that there may be remaining populations of this large, charismatic insect that have not yet been discovered,” say Skvarla and Fischer. books.
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