The giant insect hiding in plain sight: scientists name a new species decades after first seeing it

One of Australia's largest stick insects had been sitting in front of scientists — and insect enthusiasts' cameras — for decades, misidentified the whole time. Now, after combining DNA analysis, museum collections, citizen-science records and studies of captive populations, University of Sydney researchers have recognised it as an entirely new species: Anchiale robusta. The same revision of the Anchiale genus, published in the journal Austral Entomology, also described Anchiale mabiensis from Queensland's critically endangered Mabi rainforest — whose eggs carry a structural lid never before seen in stick insects or their relatives. More than 1,000 citizen-science sightings on iNaturalist helped crack the case. Discovery, it turns out, can happen in your own backyard.