New Insect Species Discovered in the Park!

Semachrysa jade sp n.

A new species of insect has been recently discovered in Taman Warisan Negeri Selangor (Selangor State Park).  How exciting!

An extract of the finding:

An unusual new species of green lacewing (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Semachrysa jade sp. n.) is described from Selangor (in the Selangor State Park) as a joint discovery by citizen scientist and professional taxonomists. The incidental nature of this discovery is underscored by the fact that the species was initially photographed and then released, with images subsequently posted to an online image database. It was not until the images in the database were randomly examined by the professional taxonomists that it was determined that the species was in fact new. A subsequent specimen was collected at the same locality

Green lacewings are the second largest family of lacewings, with more than 1200 species in approximately 80 valid genera distributed in all major biogeographical regions worldwide (Brooks and Barnard 1990).

The insect was originally photographed and released and was a female Semachrysa jade sp. n. female habitus. The forewing length was15.0 mm.  It was photographed by Guek Hock Ping.

The insect was found 0.8 km SSW of entrance of Selangor State Park, Selangor, Malaysia (GPS: 3.3057, 101.693), in closed forest type.

The unusual new species is easily differentiated from all other species of Semachrysa by the distinctive wing venation mark between the antennal bases and only two spots across the frons, as well as the female abdominal sternite 7 being posteromedially acuminate with a tuft of strong setae. Only the female is known at this stage. Semachrysa jade sp. n. is similar in appearance to Semachrysa wallacei, based on head and wing markings. Like Semachrysa jade sp. n., Semachrysa wallacei is also only known from the female.

Information and photo extracted from the following site, read more here:

ZooKeys