What’s all hairy, black, and red? a newly discovered bug species from Australia that some have called the “punk beetle” because of its shaggy white hair.
While camping, a Queensland researcher happened upon the fluffy specimen and initially thought it was bird poop.
It’s really distinctive. That is a rare characteristic among insects, James Tweed told the BBC.
Since then, the national science organization CSIRO has verified that this is a completely new family of longhorn beetles.
Mr. Tweed didn’t give it much thought when he initially noticed a little white item on a leaf in the Gold Coast hinterland in December 2021.
However, the entomologist had to perform a double take when he realized that this was an entirely other kind of bug.
“It’s about one centimetre long… and covered in long, fluffy white hairs,” stated the man.
“A lot of the hairs stand basically straight upright, and so it gives it a bit of a mohawk type look.”
He excitedly took a picture and gathered the bug for further examination.
Mr Tweed, a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, took the bug to the CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC) after posting to a Facebook group of insect aficionados yielded no results.
“I worked with a couple of colleagues from the national insect collection, who literally wrote the book on these groups of beetles… they examined tens of thousands of specimens in museums all over Australia and the world, and they’ve never found it before.”
This bug was distinct from other spiky-haired insect species that scientists had previously found, such as hairy caterpillars and a jet black ant from Queensland with a blazing orange mane.
“I’m not aware of any [other insects] that have a hairdo like this one does.”
Excastra albopilosa, which means “from the camp” in Latin, is the official name of this unique species of longhorn beetle, so unique in fact that the ANIC deemed it to be a completely new genus or family group of beetles. The term “white and hairy” refers to the species.
Although the specific reason for the bug’s fuzzy appearance is unknown to experts, they believe it has evolved to resemble an insect that has been killed by a fungus in order to ward off predators.
BY- HHM