Two new species of large stick insects have been discovered in Australia, according to reporting summarized by ScienceDaily and Earth.com. One of the insects had been photographed by people for years but had never been given a scientific name, while the other is a rainforest species whose eggs carry rings that researchers say have not been seen before.
The findings were covered across several science outlets, including ScienceDaily, Earth.com, SciTechDaily and ecoticias.com. ScienceDaily's headline states that one giant stick insect fooled scientists for decades, and SciTechDaily describes the work as the solving of a decades-old stick insect mystery. According to ecoticias.com, the newly named insect is an Australian species that people had photographed for years before it finally received its own scientific name.
The same outlet reports that researchers also found a rainforest species whose eggs carry rings never seen before. Earth.com notes that both discoveries were made in regions of Australia that scientists consider well studied, which is part of why the findings drew attention.
The reports do not include details such as the scientific names assigned to the insects, the researchers involved, or where exactly the specimens were collected. Those specifics were not available in the source material.
What to watch next: formal publication of the species descriptions, which should provide the scientific names, collection locations and the researchers' full findings.
