“Scientists recently announced they had found an enormous new stick insect in Australia. At 41cm in length and weighing 44g, the main question I heard was: ‘Why didn’t scientists notice something that big before now?’

The short answer is: it’s a stick. Stick insects spent over 100m years perfecting their cosplay as leaves, branches and moss. They are diabolically difficult to spot, even with fairly acute human vision. If you disturb a stick insect, its usual response is to fall to the ground and lie still. So now you are looking for a stick lying on the ground … among all the other sticks.

Scientists were alerted to the presence of this new insect, Acrophylla alta, by a photo posted on iNaturalist, the community science sharing site.”

From The Guardian.