Scientist Finds Rare Jurassic Era Bug At Arkansas Walmart, Kills It and Puts It On a Pin (cbsnews.com) 41
Longtime Slashdot reader theshowmecanuck shares a report from CBS News: A 2012 trip to a Fayetteville, Arkansas, Walmart to pick up some milk turned out to be one for the history books. A giant bug that stopped a scientist in his tracks as he walked into the store and he ended up taking home turned out to be a rare Jurassic-era flying insect. Michael Skvarla, director of Penn State University's Insect Identification Lab, found the mysterious bug -- an experience that he says he remembers "vividly."
"I was walking into Walmart to get milk and I saw this huge insect on the side of the building," he said in a press release from Penn State. "I thought it looked interesting, so I put it in my hand and did the rest of my shopping with it between my fingers. I got home, mounted it, and promptly forgot about it for almost a decade."
[I]n the fall of 2020 when he was teaching an online course on insect biodiversity and evolution, Skvarla was showing students the bug and suddenly realized it wasn't what he originally thought. He and his students then figured out what it might be -- live on a Zoom call. "We were watching what Dr. Skvarla saw under his microscope and he's talking about the features and then just kinda stops," one of his students Codey Mathis said. "We all realized together that the insect was not what it was labeled and was in fact a super-rare giant lacewing." A clear indicator of this identification was the bug's wingspan. It was about 50 millimeters -- nearly 2 inches -- a span that the team said made it clear the insect was not an antlion. His team's molecular analysis on the bug has been published in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington.
theshowmecanuck captioned: "To be fair, he said he didn't know what it was so [he] just collected it and took it home, and then figured it out later. My thought that I added to the title was because of this quote in the story (which tickled my cynicism in humanity): "It could have been 100 years since it was even in this area -- and it's been years since it's been spotted anywhere near it..."
"I was walking into Walmart to get milk and I saw this huge insect on the side of the building," he said in a press release from Penn State. "I thought it looked interesting, so I put it in my hand and did the rest of my shopping with it between my fingers. I got home, mounted it, and promptly forgot about it for almost a decade."
[I]n the fall of 2020 when he was teaching an online course on insect biodiversity and evolution, Skvarla was showing students the bug and suddenly realized it wasn't what he originally thought. He and his students then figured out what it might be -- live on a Zoom call. "We were watching what Dr. Skvarla saw under his microscope and he's talking about the features and then just kinda stops," one of his students Codey Mathis said. "We all realized together that the insect was not what it was labeled and was in fact a super-rare giant lacewing." A clear indicator of this identification was the bug's wingspan. It was about 50 millimeters -- nearly 2 inches -- a span that the team said made it clear the insect was not an antlion. His team's molecular analysis on the bug has been published in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington.
theshowmecanuck captioned: "To be fair, he said he didn't know what it was so [he] just collected it and took it home, and then figured it out later. My thought that I added to the title was because of this quote in the story (which tickled my cynicism in humanity): "It could have been 100 years since it was even in this area -- and it's been years since it's been spotted anywhere near it..."
Re: (Score:2)
It's always a good justification for humanity's darker side.
It was in a Walmart parking lot. If he hadn't collected it, the bug would have been run over within five minutes.
Re:Killing in the name of science (Score:4, Funny)
2/5 stars at best.
Re:Killing in the name of science (Score:4, Funny)
I am ready for the return of the dinosaurs.
I'm looking forward to the part where the t-rexes eat the lawyers.
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I'm looking forward to the part where the t-rexes eat the lawyers.
I cannot approve of this attraction
Cause getting disemboweled always makes me kind of mad
A huge Tyrannosaurus ate our lawyer
Well I suppose that proves they're really not all bad
Jurassic Park is frightening in the dark
All the dinosaurs are running wild
Someone let T. rex out of his pen
I'm afraid those things'll harm me
Cause they sure don't act like Barney
And they think that I'm their dinner, not their friend
Oh no!
Re: (Score:1)
I love you
please love me
you're core to my recipe
with a great big chomp
I'll make you into poo
bring your friend for sweetmeat too
-- reconstructed Jurassic Barney
Re: (Score:3)
I was excited when I read jurassic era, and confused when I read he killed it.
Yeah, that headline makes about as much sense as "Locals in Luling, Louisiana found an Oligocene era reptile, killed it, and ate it."
American Alligator [wikipedia.org]
https://www.alligatorfestival.... [alligatorfestival.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the book was much better.
Re: Killing in the name of science (Score:2)
lacewings live for about 4 weeks or less, dumbass
Re: (Score:3)
... or sold in the deli.
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Uh well, Arkansas.... (Score:4, Funny)
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Stay classy, Slashdot (Score:1)
The headline is just as classy as a trip to an Arkansas Walmart.
It did have more than 10 words though! (Score:2)
I had to ask ChatGPT how many words there were in that title and it responded that there are 13 words.
I couldn't confirm that as I only have 10 fingers.
Re: (Score:2)
Kids today - so unresourceful.
Re:Not rare at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Look at the photo in the article, it is not a dragonfly or damselfly. Those have two pairs of long narrow wings arrange differently. This creature's wings are as if the top and bottom lobes of a butterfly's wing were separate. The head and eyes are also quite different.
Re: (Score:2)
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At what times are they thick? Late afternoon?
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To blithely assert a scientist, a specialist in the field of insect study, in fact, published a scientific paper about this discovery in error... all based on a three-second glance at a picture of said insect.... Way to corroborate that Dunning-Kruger effect!
Re: (Score:1)
Hey, he did his own research, he knows what he's talking about!
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Thanks slashdotter for putting us straight. I was begging to worry that an expert in the field may knew what they were talking about, but thankfully we have you to set us straight.
Now please tell us how Fauci got it so wrong, why the USA bombed the Nordstream pipeline, and why crypto is the future saviour of the financial world and the bestest currency evar.
Well now (Score:5, Funny)
I got home, mounted it, and promptly forgot about it for almost a decade.
My female friends tell me this is pretty common behavior for some guys they've dated.
Re: (Score:2)
They dated the same guy for a decade?
Oblig Simpson's ref (Score:1)
Bart gutting fish [youtube.com].
And in other news ... (Score:2)
Walmart wants their bug back.
Time traveller killed by native (Score:2)
Details at 11...
Oh, no (Score:2)
Reading this news, I shockingly realized that I ate a Dinosaur yesterday, Doing some research, I was able to determine its species name - Gallus gallus.
Killing is standard practice (Score:2)
In biology, one regularly kills insects. The verb to kill sounds extreme, until you realize that there is something called a killjar, and killing is just another word for preservation.
Guy walking around Walmart with bug in his hand (Score:2)
I guess... (Score:2)
This being Slashdot, I did something dumb, I read the article.
Skvarla originally thought the bug he had plucked from the Walmart's exterior was an antlion.
So, the person miss-identified it then 10 years later discovered what it was.
Skvarla was showing students the bug and suddenly realized it wasn't what he originally thought. He and his students then figured out what it might be – live on a Zoom call.
So the heading is somewhat miss-leading.
It was a lab leak (Score:1)
Is there a wet market near that Walmart?
facts not in evidenc (Score:2)
Nothing in any article says he killed it. It quite likely was already dead. I often find dead lacewings or dragonflies on things like my driveway or lawn.
Re: (Score:2)
But THIS dead bug had been sitting on the outside wall of a Walmart for 150 million years!