Foot-Long Insect Discovered In Vietnam

Scientists are claiming to have found what they describe as the longest known insect, a gentle giant known as Phryganistria heusii yentuensis, recently during an expedition to Vietnam. It measures at more than a foot long (32 centimeters), but if you then stretch its front legs out, it can measure at more than half a meter (21 inches) in total length. Fortunately, these insects are gentle and easy going

The discoveries, which are reported in the European Journal of Taxonomy, were made by a duo of researchers from the Royal Belgium Institute of National Sciences as they scoured dense Vietnamese and Chinese forests in search of insects. Vietnam, and part of southern China, is part of the Indo-Burma region, which is in the world's top 10 biodiversity "hotspots," meaning it is one of our planet's most biologically rich regions. Unfortunately, alongside housing an abundance of endemic plant and animal species, it is also home to more humans than any other hotspot, meaning the region is threatened by habitat loss and over-exploitation of resources.

New discoveries are being made all of the time......What says ATS?

www.businessinsider.com...

It's amazing that we are finding all these new species even as we are verging on destroying all their habitat and sending them to extinction.

a reply to: lostbook

And who would be stretching its front legs out, may I ask. I won't click on most links, any pics of this beauty? Seems like a foot long insect would have been discovered by now. What would be its major predators? Thanks for the post.

a reply to: Aleister

It is a stick bug so it had been very very sneaky

a reply to: Aleister

Here you go:



Source

People say we're going to destroy the Earth, but there's going to be plants and bugs and such way after us, IMO.

Has anyone else seen the movie "Nausica Valley of the Wind"? To me, that seems like the most likely outcome. The more we toxify the earth, the more toxic the earth (and its life) will become to us, until we live in fear of the "toxic jungle" and rampaging bugs and stuff.

Sometimes I wish I could take a back seat for a million years and watch it happen, because frankly I'd be down.

My best hope is that humans move underground and let the surface of the earth thrive, or something like that. I have dreams about that, sometimes.

I can see how that thing would be hard to find in a Vietnamese jungle.
I love phasmids. Second only to the mantids for incredible camouflage adaptations.

a reply to: skunkape23

They creep me out for that very reason.
Think it is just a twig on your arm till it starts moving

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: skunkape23

They creep me out for that very reason.
Think it is just a twig on your arm till it starts moving

Hahahaha! I was so afraid it was going to be like some huge thing with lots of legs or really gross and scary looking. I like that stick bug. Kinda cool.

Another creepy fact:

1. Stick insects can shed and regenerate their limbs to escape attacks by predators. Should a bird or other predator grab hold of a stick insect's leg, it can still make an easy escape. The stick insect simply gives up the leg, using a special muscle to break it off at a weak joint.

10 Fascinating Facts About Stick Insects



I was wondering how you would go about finding these insects and saw this:

The new walking stick species were found using a classic entomological technique: beating. It involves a really large stick and a bed sheet. You put the sheet on the ground and whack a bush with your stick. Many insects release their grip and play dead when disturbed, and so drop onto your sheet for easy retrieval.

Source

That's high tech right there! This particular species was found in a bush, apparently, not with "beating".

I have picked up a stick bug once that sprayed a very smelly substance that looked like powdered graphite on my hand.
There is also a variety that I call "piggy-backers" that seem to always be screwing...smaller male mounted on the larger female.

I have only seen one stick bug in my entire life when I was a kid. Nothing huge like the one in this thread though. I was totally mesmerized by such a finding. I was like WHOA how cool is that? LOL

a reply to: CB328

Yeah just imagine all the things we killed and never knew about.

originally posted by: Casandra
Another creepy fact:

1. Stick insects can shed and regenerate their limbs to escape attacks by predators. Should a bird or other predator grab hold of a stick insect's leg, it can still make an easy escape. The stick insect simply gives up the leg, using a special muscle to break it off at a weak joint.

10 Fascinating Facts About Stick Insects

I was wondering how you would go about finding these insects and saw this:

The new walking stick species were found using a classic entomological technique: beating. It involves a really large stick and a bed sheet. You put the sheet on the ground and whack a bush with your stick. Many insects release their grip and play dead when disturbed, and so drop onto your sheet for easy retrieval.

Source

That's high tech right there! This particular species was found in a bush, apparently, not with "beating".

I was going to dig for a pic, but you did it for me.
That is what I call "piggy-backers."
They are fairly common in these parts.

I kept stickbugs in an aquarium when I was little. You would start with one and end up with a hundred. They were asexual.

They'd escape and i'd hear things scratching around my room at night, and find little guys on brightly coloured objects swaying pretending to be a stick in the wind.

a reply to: Ridhya

Well that must have been quite interesting. Stick bug pets. LOL

Well, now know to white European people....Im sure the locals have known of this creature for ...say several thousand years??

Yes, there are 100s of new species discovered weekly....we do live on an amazing planet, that we still have a lot to learn about.
Hard to believe there use to be huge Dinosaurs, then huge Mammal megafauna, not to forget all the Flora.........and what's in the oceans....that we still don't know about.
We are a lucky species.

originally posted by: skunkape23
I have picked up a stick bug once that sprayed a very smelly substance that looked like powdered graphite on my hand.
There is also a variety that I call "piggy-backers" that seem to always be screwing...smaller male mounted on the larger female.

lol

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

I laughed at that too. It must be stick bug poo. LOL
That, or some kind of defense mechanism.

a reply to: Night Star

Ya in that 10 facts about them link above it says it is a defense mech.

My family has a ranch in south dakota and these stick bugs, well not this one footers, were all over the place.

Have had them do the same to me