New Insect Species Discovered While Browsing On Flickr

It seems that our parents are wrong when they say that nothing good comes from browsing on the Internet. Shaun Winterton was able to discover a new species of insect while browsing on Flickr! The California-based entomologist made a discovery by looking at pictures online. He was looking at pictures by Guek Hock Ping when he found photos of a green lacewing that had patterns on its wings that he never saw before, as PetaPixel detailed:  

He then contacted the photographer, who informed him that the image was taken the the jungles of Malaysia. Without a specimen, however, there was no way to learn whether the image was in fact a new species — or simply some kind of outlier.

One year later, Guek returned to the spot, found another identical lacewing, and this time trapped it in a jar. The specimen was then sent to an entomologist in London and confirmed to be new. The discovery was recently published in the scientific journal ZooKeys, with the new insect named Semachrysa jade after Winterton’s daughter.

image via PetaPixel