Aussie photographer discovers ‘new species' hidden on backyard tree
An eagle-eyed photographer has made two remarkable discoveries after zooming in on a rainforest tree that sprung up in his backyard. David White was initially captivated by a crab spider that was smaller than his thumbnail and had perfectly camouflaged itself against the mottled trunk.
But then he noticed a second creature that was even more difficult to see, and has now sparked excitement from experts overseas. One is almost certain it's an entirely new species.
'It was so tiny, you wouldn't believe how small it is, no bigger than two millimetres,' David told Yahoo News. 'I'm pretty old, but I could just make out a bit of movement on the tree at nighttime.'
David has delighted in photographing the elusive creatures that live around his home, which sits on the edge of the Daintree Rainforest. Rotting logs, tight crevices in bark and high branches all provide homes for insects and spiders that most people go their entire lives without ever noticing.
'There's a whole world in front of our eyes that you don't really see unless you get really close,' David said.
'It's a bit of fun. It's like Pokémon Go,' he quipped in reference to the online augmented reality game in which users search for mystical animals.
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By day, David is a professional tour guide, who takes tourists on adventures down the Daintree River to see large crocodiles. But it's at night that he turns his attention to the world of hidden insects.
He has uploaded dozens of images of his unique finds to iNaturalist, a global social networking site where hobbyists and professionals share locations and pictures of plants and animals. In his home suburb of Wonga Beach in Queensland, there are over 3,300 listings, but globally there are over 10 million.
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A leading grasshopper expert, living half a world away in Croatia, believes this second creature David photographed on the tree trunk could be a new species.
Speaking with Yahoo News via email, Dr Josip Skejo from the University of Zagreb explained the grasshopper appears to be from a genus of tiny grasshoppers called Echopraxia, but it has significant differences from other known grasshoppers.
"As we have reviewed all known specimens of Echopraxia in the Queensland Museum, we have never seen a specimen with this combination of morphological characters. The most special trait is the long pronotum, the large structure behind the head that covers the whole body in Tetrigidae, while in other grasshoppers it is restricted to the neck region," he said.
"This new species lives together with recently described Echopraxia cooki and according to David's observations, it seems to be much rarer than E. cooki."
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