New Zealand zoological magazine Zootaxa has published a formal description of the what is officially the world’s longest insect.
The length of a human arm,or 35.7 centimeters, the immense bug is a stick insect from the island of Borneo. Found by a local villager, it was handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989. It was named Phobaeticus chani, or “Chan’s megastick,” in Chan’s honor.
Bugs like Phobaeticus (the specimen on display at London Zoo is nicknamed “Phoebe”), are known as phasmids, because they have some of the cleverest camouflage in the animal kingdom.
