Discoveries

April 05, 2024

Hairy Camper

Listen to Today's Edition

Entomologist James Tweed came across the hairy insect by accident while camping in the rainforests of Australia’s Queensland. He initially thought it was bird poo, Popular Science reported.

The mysterious beetle puzzled Tweed and his colleagues because there was no scientific record of such a species.

In his paper, he explained that the bug was not only a completely unknown new species, but also a newly discovered genus. It is less than an inch long and packed with long white and black hair.

Tweed praised it as “the most extraordinary and fluffiest longhorn beetle I had ever seen.”

The Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra opted to name the newly-found beetle as Excastra albopilosa – the first name which means “from the camp,” and the second meaning “white and hairy.”

Tweed noted that entomologists still need to determine why E. albopilosa appears like bird poop and the purpose of the hair.

He and his team suggested that they helped the beetle “look like it’s been killed by an insect-killing fungus.”

“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,” he added.

Until then, Tweed said the discovery underscores just how many unknown insect species are out there.

“Best estimates suggest there may be 5.5 million insect species worldwide and only one-fifth of these have been named and described,” he added.

This story originally appeared in the April 05, 2024 newsletter, Walking Sideways.