Giant flying bug found at Arkansas Walmart turns out to be "super-rare" Jurassic-era insect

[sl8]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lacewing-flying-bug-found-arkansas-walmart-rare-jurassic-era-insect/

Giant flying bug found at Arkansas Walmart turns out to be "super-rare" Jurassic-era insect

BY LI COHEN
MARCH 1, 2023 / 7:08 AM / CBS NEWS

A 2012 trip to a Fayetteville, Arkansas, Walmart to pick up some milk turned out to be one for the history books. A giant bug that stopped a scientist in his tracks as he walked into the store and he ended up taking home turned out to be a rare Jurassic-era flying insect.

Michael Skvarla, director of Penn State University's Insect Identification Lab, found the mysterious bug – an experience that he says he remembers "vividly."

"I was walking into Walmart to get milk and I saw this huge insect on the side of the building," he said in a press release from Penn State. "I thought it looked interesting, so I put it in my hand and did the rest of my shopping with it between my fingers. I got home, mounted it, and promptly forgot about it for almost a decade."

Skvarla originally thought the bug he had plucked from the Walmart's exterior was an antlion. These bugs, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation, "look like fragile, drab damselflies, with an elongated body, four intricately veined wings mottled with browns and black, and clubbed or curved antennae about as long as the combined head and thorax."

[...]

[PlutosHeart]

6. No. He killed the last one.

[live love laugh]

16. LOL 😂

[Joinfortmill]

2. Wow.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

3. "so I put it in my hand and did the rest of my shopping with it between my fingers"

ewww

[rubbersole]

15. Bug guys aren't as bad as snake guys in Walmart.

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

The researchers analyzed extensive collection records of giant lacewings, including museum holdings and community science submissions, and placed them into a single map to determine their distribution. The records span a huge geographic range, from Alaska to Panama, and include multiple ecoregions in both eastern and western North America. The map revealed the Arkansas specimen was the first spotted in eastern North America in over 50 years.

Fayetteville lies within the Ozark Mountains, which are a suspected biodiversity hotspot, according to Skvarla and his co-author J. Ray Fisher of the Mississippi Entomological Museum at Mississippi State University.

They said that dozens of endemic species, including 68 species of insects, are known from the Ozarks and at least 58 species of plants and animals have highly disjunct populations with representatives in the region. They explain that the area is understudied compared to regions of similar biodiversity, such as the Southern Appalachians.

"This combination makes the region an ideal place for a large, showy insect to hide undetected," they said.

The mystery remains as to how the insect arrived on the exterior of a Walmart. The fact that it was found on the side of a well-lit building at night suggests that it was likely attracted to the lights and may have flown at least a few hundred meters from where it originated, Skvarla explained. "It could have been 100 years since it was even in this area -- and it's been years since it's been spotted anywhere near it. The next closest place that they've been found was 1,200 miles away, so very unlikely it would have traveled that far."

The researchers note that they suspect the new specimen represents a rare, surviving eastern population of giant lacewings that evaded detection and extinction.

[Hortensis]

5. Lol, the paths of Jurassic-era insect and the head of an insect identification lab

intersect and new discovery is made, albeit a decade after carrying the bug around Walmart while he shopped. Love this stuff! Thanks, sl8.

[SouthernDem4ever]

7. I would have swatted it and moved on

LOL Where I live we have Jurassic-era cockroaches that fly.

[MontanaMama]

13. Whenever I curse Montana's never ending winters...

Last edited Thu Mar 2, 2023, 11:01 AM - Edit history (1)

I remember that we don’t have cockroaches. The never ending winters are worth every bit of my non-cockroach reality.

[Traildogbob]

9. Well Hell

It’s obvious Arkansas is 100’s of years behind in any evolutionary trends. The damn brains alone have been stagnant for 500-700 years.

[canetoad]

10. I don't think they are exactly gigantic

But that all other lacewings are probably smaller and this is comparatively large.
Not many pictures showing actual size but I found this:

Giant Lacewing - Osmylus fulvicephalus
https://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/giant-lacewing

Identified by its large size (around 25 mm including wing length) and spotted wings.
(25mm is about 1 inch)

[Hekate]

11. What a cool story of identifying it while teaching class & working from there with students

[ok_cpu]

12. What a universe this is

I don't remember getting from the article if he lived in Fayetteville at the time, but a director of an insect ID lab on the other side of the country and this insect converge at a Wal Mart.

[dalton99a]

14. He was a University of Arkansas student at the time

according to his bio