The Natural History Museum in London has recently acquired a new friend to share the home with its 9 million butterflies and moths.
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A new species of butterfly has recently been discovered with the help of it’s facial hair. A moustache was the key difference in a new type of butterfly hailing from Colombia.
It is the museum’s resident expert, Blanca Huertas, who discovered the new species while exploring remote regions of Columbia four years ago. Until her team brought the specimen home to compare with the museums’ other 3 million butterfly species, they weren’t aware of their new find.
Bearing a trademark hairy mouth along with other characteristics, the Colombian butterfly was confirmed as new, and named plendeuptychia ackeryi, or Magdalena Valley Ringlet, derived from the area it was found in.
According to the Museum of Natural History, Huertas is very enthusiastic about this discovery, hoping it probes others towards increased study of the natural world. “We are working hard at the Museum to encourage a new generation of researchers to help us to complete the inventory of the planet’s biodiversity,” she explained, “before we lose more species unknown to science.”
The full study was published in the journal Zootaxa.
Source and images: Museum of Natural History
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