Giant bug flying outside Walmart found to be ‘super rare’ insect not seen in decades

For nearly 10 years, an insect discovered outside a Walmart was only thought to be an “interesting” finding.

But when the doctoral student turned professor showed his class the bug during a 2020 lesson, they learned together just how rare the discovery was.

Michael Skvarla, now the director of Penn State University’s Insect Identification Lab, found the insect in 2012 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, but he misidentified it, according to a news release from the university.

“I remember it vividly, because I was walking into Walmart to get milk and I saw this huge insect on the side of the building,” Skvarla, at the time a doctoral student at the University of Arkansas, said in the news release. “I thought it looked interesting, so I put it in my hand and did the rest of my shopping with it between my fingers. I got home, mounted it, and promptly forgot about it for almost a decade.”

Skvarla mislabeled the bug as an antlion, and he and his students made the realization in 2020 that he was wrong.

Teaching an insect biodiversity and evolution class over Zoom in 2020, Skvarla observed for the first time that his discovery wasn’t what he thought.

“We were watching what Dr. Skvarla saw under his microscope and he’s talking about the features and then just kinda stops,” said Codey Mathis, a Penn State doctoral candidate. “We all realized together that the insect was not what it was labeled and was in fact a super-rare giant lacewing. I still remember the feeling. It was so gratifying to know that the excitement doesn’t dim, the wonder isn’t lost. Here we were making a true discovery in the middle of an online lab course.”

DNA analysis confirmed the bug as a giant lacewing, a Jurassic-era bug not seen in eastern North America since the 1950s, the university said.

The “incredibly rare” insect can be up to 2 inches long, dwarfing other lacewing bugs, according to the Missoula Butterfly House & Insectarium.

The rediscovery of the giant lacewing is largely a mystery, but Skvarla called the Ozark Mountain region where the bug was found a “biodiversity hotspot.”

He said the region is “an ideal place for a large, showy insect to hide undetected,” according to the university.

The giant lacewing is now among the collections at Penn State’s Frost Entomological Museum.

This story was originally published March 2, 2023 at 11:13 AM with the headline "Giant bug flying outside Walmart found to be ‘super rare’ insect not seen in decades."