Rare Prehistoric Insect Found by Teacher in Walmart #Shorts

Michael Skvarla, who was a doctoral student at the University of Arkansas, plucked a giant insect from the façade of an Arkansas Walmart in 2012 while running in the store to get milk and put it in a bag as he found it interesting. A decade later, he realized that the giant lacewing is worth much as a historic record.

This Polystoechotes punctata, or giant lacewee, was later studied by students of Skvarla in 2020. They found that this bug hasn’t been seen in eastern North America for 50 years, and through molecular analysis, it appears to have evolved in the Jurassic Era.

Mr. Skvarla, now director of Penn State University’s Insect Identification Lab, made this discovery when teaching an online course based on his personal insect collection. Students and Dr. Skvarla were observing it under the microscope, and “we all realized together that the insect was not what it was labeled and was in fact a super-rare giant lacewing,” said Skvarla.

Skvarla said it remained mysterious about its whereabouts and how it ended up in Fayetteville after disappearing from the entire region, which, as Scientis said, may have been due to pollution, artificial light, non-native predators, or a number of other factors.

Read more at the link in our bio.

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