New Snow Scorpionfly Species Discovered in Alaska
Posted on July 11, 2013
Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (Derek Sikes and Jill Stockbridge) discovered a strange new insect on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. The insect is a new species of snow scorpionfly. It belongs to the insect order Mecoptera, which also includes scorpionflies and hangingflies.
Study co-author Jill Stockbridge, said in a statement, "We process thousands of Alaskan insects specimens into our collections at the University of Alaska Museum every year so it's rare that we see something that throws us for a loop. I called Derek, the Curator of Insects for the museum, into the lab and asked him what kind of insect this was and he didn't even know the order!"
The researchers posted a digital photo of the insect on Facebook so their entomologist friends could offer their opinions. The researchers say it is such a strange insect that most suggestions were wrong. One entomologist, Michael Ivie, of Montana State University, recognized it as the genus Caurinus, of which only one species, from Washington and Oregon, was previously known.
Lead author Derek Sikes says, "In addition to being the second known species of such an usual group of insects, we were excited to learn from fossil evidence that these two species belong to a group that probably dates back over 145 million years, to the Jurassic!"
A paper on the scorpionfly was published here in the journal, ZooKeys. Here is a video the snow scorpionfly hoping like a flea: