A cricket named after a Tolkien monster, found in a tunnel dug by people

Some new species hide in rainforests. This one hid in a hole people dug. On Kastellorizo, a tiny Greek island about six kilometres by three, scientists exploring a 25-metre-deep man-made tunnel on Mount Vigla found a cave cricket science had never described — and named it Dolichopoda balrogi, after the Balrog, the fiery monster from The Lord of the Rings. DNA sequencing and close study of its brown body and long, curved climbing limbs confirmed it as a distinct species, formally described in the Journal of Orthoptera Research. Its genus now counts 68 known species — and Greece, remarkably, is home to 51 of them.