Call it fate, or just pure luck; one insect species recently gained a scientific name due to an eagle-eyed taxonomist browsing images on Flickr.
Our short story begins with a simple upload: Amateur photographer Hock Ping Guek posted a series of close-up photos featuring a strange green lacewing insect to the photo-sharing service in May 2011. Guek, who observed the lacewing at a state park in the Malaysian state of Selangor, has a penchant for macro insect photography.
Shaun Winterton, a senior insect biosystematist for the California Department of Food & Agriculture, along with other researchers, randomly came across the images of the unusual green lacewing on Flickr. They set off to identify the unknown insect.
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