A super rare insect was spotted at a Walmart in the United States for the first time in over 50 years, and its origins date back to the Jurrasic period.
A "giant lacewing," scientifically named the Polystoechotes punctata, was found on the side of a Walmart store in Fayetteville, AR, according to Penn State scientist Adrienne Brerard in a press release from February 27.
The unique species looks like a giant fly, having been recorded to have a massive 65-millimetre wingspan, and looks straight out of the prehistoric era it supposedly came from.
A giant lacewing insect.Michael Skvarla | Penn State
"Scientists hypothesize the insect’s disappearance could be due to the ever-increasing amount of artificial light and pollution of urbanization," the release states.
The Walmart sighting of the insect actually happened all the way back in 2012 by a local professor Michael Skvarla, but it wasn't able to be correctly identified until 2020 while Skvarla was teaching an online course.
"The fact that this insect was spotted in a region that it hasn’t been seen in over half a century tells us something more broadly about the environment," Skvarla said in the press release. "The next closest place that they've been found was 1,200 miles away, so very unlikely it would have traveled that far."
This discovery is now prompting researchers to speculate how the rare giant lacewing randomly appeared in urban Arkansas and has been sighted ever since.
"The researchers note that they suspect the new specimen represents a rare, surviving eastern population of giant lacewings that evaded detection and extinction," according to Penn State.