Volunteers track down Tasmania's elusive, flightless pandani moth

Resumen detallado

It can't fly, it spends its life hidden among the foliage of a native plant, and its closest relative is in another country. Scientists are now trying to find out more about this elusive insect.

Tasmania, as entomologist Peter McQuillan puts it, is "a Noah's Ark of ancient species long since lost elsewhere".

The bronze-brown insect is large for its species, with big legs and a purplish reflective hue under light.

It has also lost the ability to fly, moving about mostly by hopping — although it can glide down from the Tasmanian pandani, a slow growing alpine plant that the moth lives in.

It was first seen in the 1980s, given a formal name by Dr McQuillan in the early 2000s and then rarely seen — until last year, when a group of volunteers from Wildcare Tasmania surveyed the population in the state's remote south-west.

Jarrah Dale, an ecologist with the Tasmanian Department of Natural Environment (NRE) and the group's president, became captivated by the moth years ago after reading Dr McQuillan's description paper.

His position as a ranger at Mount Field National Park at the time helped feed his curiosity.

"What do you mean there's this moth that just lives in the alpine area and it mostly hops, and its closest relatives are in New Zealand?"

Chew marks on pandani leaves were a clue the elusive moth was there, but it wasn't until years later, when Dr Dale returned to Australia after completing an overseas PhD, that he would finally find the insect.

"I decided, 'Bloody hell. I'm going to meet this moth because I've thought about it for so many years,'" he said.

Inicio del artículo, extracto de ABC Science. Para leer el resto, abra el artículo en el sitio del medio.