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German Scientist Discovers New Insect Order

Posted by timothy on from the cannibalism-rocks dept.

iphayd writes: "An entomologist in Germany has discovered the first species in a new order of insects. National Geographic News has a story here. The new species, called 'the gladiator,' is a 'cross between a stick insect, a mantid, and a grasshopper.'"

8 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. Food? by 0xB · · Score: 2, Funny


    Are they poisonous? Do they taste nice?

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    0xB
  2. Major Tiny... by hartsock · · Score: 4, Interesting


    "This discovery is comparable to finding a mastodon or saber-toothed tiger," said Piotr Naskrecki, director of Conservation International's new Invertebrate Diversity Initiative

    Yes, except either of those animals could a) smush you, or b) gore you... this little guy will just creep-you-out! "Ew, get it off! get it off!"

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    Live to Code, Code to Live!
  3. Software needs to deal with unexpected events by ynotds · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why not post an informational article about mathematics or information theory that might actually enrich or prove beneficial to the careers of Slashdot's readers?

    The occasional reminder from the natural world about the strange things that actually happen in defiance of all the best theoretical simplifications is never a bad thing.

    For the record, this new class of insect ranks somewhere between the Coelacanth and the Wollemi Pine on at least a couple of measures of significance. In both those cases the media got quite excited.

    On the Linnaean kingdom-phylum-class-order-family-genus-species scale, the Coelacanth ranks as the only living member of class actinistia which shares a closer common ancestor with the tetrapods (including us) than does any other fish in the ocean. However the Woolemi Pine only ranks as a new genus of the Araucariaceae family, and any common ancestor with us is clearly much further in the past than that of this new insect "gladiator".

    Seeing as the Linnaean txonomy project has been ongoing since Carl Linnaeus published his Systema Naturae in 1735, the illusion of completeness at higher levels ensures newsworthiness when something is discovered for which the closest related fossils known are tens of millions of years old.

    So I really do see a similarities between finding a new bug in the Brandberg Mountains of Namibia and finding a new bug in software that had been running successfully for years.

    BTW, I have no idea how anybody could imagine that calling a story "homosexual" would deter many Slashdot readers.

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    -- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
    1. Re:Software needs to deal with unexpected events by texchanchan · · Score: 2

      This kind of thing is interesting and fits the Slashdot masthead description "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters." If biology doesn't matter I don't know what does.

  4. What are we -- blind? by psychopoet · · Score: 2, Funny

    These things are up to 4 cm long and we just discovered them! These things are hardly microscopic. Who knows -- maybe there are mastodons living in rock crevices somewhere, and we're too moronic to find them.

    On the plus side, I wonder if these things might make good pets, cleaning up all those icky spiders in our houses . . . but do they bite!? Maybe it's a good thing these things don't live all over the face of the Earth.

    1. Re:What are we -- blind? by wjsteele · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, size has nothing to do with the difficulty in find them. In fact, we just "Discovered" a huge (13 meter) octopus the other day because one happened to be caught in a fishing net. Nobody even suspected this species.

      On the other hand, there are several species that are know from the fossil record but are presumed to be extinct (like this insect.)

      The most notable one is the Celocanth (Ancient Fish) which is almost unchanged from it's fossil records (70 million years old) but was "first" found in the ocean in the 1930's.

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      It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
  5. What about the Nambians? by nucal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe this is the first time that a German discovered these things. For all we know, the Nambians have known about them for 1000 years and already have a name for them ...

  6. Tastes like chicken by dstone · · Score: 2

    one area of interest -- a couple of the insects apparently were eaten during the the trip back.

    One scientist was overheard to remark, "Mmmmph. Needs salt."