Laura is a science news writer, covering a wide variety of subjects, but she is particularly fascinated by all things aquatic, paleontology, nanotechnology, and exploring how science influences daily life. Laura is a proud former resident of the New Jersey shore, a competitive swimmer, and a fierce defender of the Oxford comma.
The adjective “fluffy” is not usually one that applies to the billions of bugs that call Earth home. Still, some caterpillars, spiders, and beetles do have longer fuzzy hairs from their many appendages. Now, there is a new genus of fluffy longhorn beetle in Australia that was found by chance and a bit of mistaken identity. The newly discovered Excastra albopilosa is described in a study published March 19 in the Australian Journal of Taxonomy.
Lingzi Zhou/Australian National Insect Collection After his trip, Tweed combed through available books, scientific papers, and on the internet to find the name of this species, but his search came up empty. Some photos posted to an Australasian beetles Facebook group sparked some interest, but even the most seasoned insect identifiers were stumped. The Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra officially confirmed that the beetle was not only a completely new species, but a new genus.
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