Fiji Lordomyrma Discovered
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 1st, 2008
Lordomyrma vanua Lucky & Sarnat 2008: Fiji image by A. Lucky & E. Sarnat
The discovery of new insects are a dime a dozen, so to speak. I tend to agree with Bernard Heuvelmans that an animal has to be large enough to have an impact on humans, visibly, to be a cryptid. The cryptids we deal with daily are usually domestic cat-sized and bigger.
However, I was struck by the attractive nature of the above new ant discovery and felt it was worth sharing its photograph here.
As the Myrmecos blog (link below) mentions, Zootaxa contained a short paper by Andrea Lucky and Eli Sarnat discussing a pair of new Lordomyrma species, including “the beautiful L. vanua pictured above. As is true of most insects, Lordomyrma vanua remains a largely unknown quantity. It has been collected just twice, both times from the island of Vanua, in Fiji, for which it is named.”
It appears even the smallest of creatures can appear quite interesting if you look close enough.
Millions of new insects remain to be discovered every year. I suppose in their world, there are many intriguing stories. This may be one of them. Certainly, to my human eyes, and the blogger’s at Myrmecos, this is a beautiful instance of an ant example.
Reference: Lucky, A. & E. M. Sarnat. 2008. New species of Lordomyrma (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Southeast Asia and Fiji. Zootaxa 1681: 37-46.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
An amazing photograph of a quite unusual specimen.
But I have to agree that if you started blogging every insect discovery that has been made, the whole site would be swarming with them. It would be the same if you did smaller marine discoveries as well.
But I do enjoy seeing the herpetological additions that pop up here or there, even though they are not cat sized.
Aliens are here! They come in the form of bugs. There are more bugs on this planet than
people. This could be the next invasion.