World`s longest insect identified

London, Oct 17: Nearly the length of a human arm, a recently identified stick bug from the island of Borneo is the world's longest insect, British scientists said.

The specimen was found by a local villager and handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989, according to Philip Bragg, who formally identified the insect in this month's issue of peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. The insect was named Phobaeticus chani, or "Chan's megastick," in Chan's honour.

Paul Brock, a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London unconnected to the animal's discovery said on Thursday, there was no doubt it was the longest extant insect ever found.

Looking more like a solid shoot of bamboo than its smaller, frailer cousins, the dull-green insect measures about 56.7 centimetres, if its delicate, twig-like legs are counted. There are 35.7 centimetres from the tip of its head to the bottom of its abdomen, beating the previous record body length, held by Phobaeticus kirbyi, also from Borneo, by about 2.9 centimetres.

Stick bugs, also known as phasmids, have some of the animal kingdom's cleverest camouflage. Although some phasmids use noxious sprays or prickly spines to deter their predators, generally the bugs assume the shape of sticks and leaves to avoid drawing attention.

"Their main defence is basically hanging around, looking like a twig," Brock said. "It will even sway in the wind."

For Bragg, who works as a schoolteacher and catalogues stick bugs as a hobby, the discovery showed the urgency of conservation work.

"There aren't enough specialists around to work on all the insects in the world," he said.

Bureau Report