Social Meets Science
Photograph courtesy Guek Hock Ping via ASU
When Hock Ping Guek uploaded a picture of a green lacewing (Semachrysa jade) to the photo-sharing website flickr, he set in motion a series of events culminating in the recognition that this insect was a new species.
Shaun Winterton, an insect researcher with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, saw the picture on flickr and thought it might be a new species, according to an account in The Guardian. But scientists needed to examine an actual specimen to be sure.
So Guek collected a female S. jade and sent it to Steve Brooks, an insect specialist at the Natural History Museum in London, who confirmed the lacewing was a new species.
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