"SCIENTISTS believe they may have found a new type of insect deep inside ancient Australian caves.
The Nocticola australiensise, which lives in 300 million-year-old limestone caves in northern Australia, is a small albino insect thought to be a type of cockroach since its discovery about 100 years ago.
But recent DNA testing of the eyeless and wingless creature has shown its genetic make-up is closer to the praying mantis than the cockroach.
Like the praying mantis, it also sits up higher on its front legs, and while breeding glues its egg case to objects, such as rocks. Cockroaches typically drop their egg cases on the ground. To further distance the creature from the average cockroach, testing for blattabacterium — a type of bacterium found in all cockroaches studied — showed no traces of the organism.
Lead author Dr Nate Lo, a University of Sydney biologist, said the findings had caught researchers by surprise, and suggested the insect was a missing link in the development of the praying mantis.
"It represents a kind of stepping stone between very primitive insects and praying mantids," he said. "Or it might be a completely new kind of insect."
Dr Lo plans to send specimens to a taxonomy expert in Germany for examination that could determine whether the albino cockroach is a new form of insect."
But recent DNA testing of the eyeless and wingless creature has shown its genetic make-up is closer to the praying mantis than the cockroach.
Like the praying mantis, it also sits up higher on its front legs, and while breeding glues its egg case to objects, such as rocks. Cockroaches typically drop their egg cases on the ground. To further distance the creature from the average cockroach, testing for blattabacterium — a type of bacterium found in all cockroaches studied — showed no traces of the organism.
Lead author Dr Nate Lo, a University of Sydney biologist, said the findings had caught researchers by surprise, and suggested the insect was a missing link in the development of the praying mantis.
"It represents a kind of stepping stone between very primitive insects and praying mantids," he said. "Or it might be a completely new kind of insect."
Dr Lo plans to send specimens to a taxonomy expert in Germany for examination that could determine whether the albino cockroach is a new form of insect."
Text from: Theage.com.au
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