#newguinea — Public Fediverse posts

💁🏻‍♀️ TIL: 🎸🐍 Scientists named a newly described #NewGuinea groundsnake, "Lielaphis slashi", after Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, for his love of #reptiles.

Herpetologist Chris Austin first spotted the 71 cm (28 in) snake during nighttime fieldwork in 2006. Genetic and ecological analysis confirmed it as a distinct #species, supporting #conservation in New Guinea’s threatened #forests.

👉 https://www.popsci.com/environment/snake-species-named-after-guns-n-roses-guitarist-slash/

#snakes #gunsnroses #herpetology #science #biodiversity #zoology #fieldmuseum #nature #wildlife #reptiles #discovery #genetics

I've been going through unsorted accessions in the #Australian National #Insect #Collection (#ANIC) here in Canberra to find any plume #moths (#Pterophoridae) and many-plume moths (#Alucitidae) before doing more work to revise the fauna of these two families.

Today, I found this specimen collected by David Rentz in #Kuranda #Queensland in 2007 - it's not a known named Australian species but it looks a close match for Platyptilia microbscura recorded only from #Misool, an island to the west of #NewGuinea:

https://www.papua-insects.nl/insect%20orders/Lepidoptera/Pterophoridae/Platyptilia/Platyptilia%20microbscura.htm

#entomology #Lepidoptera