Indonesia's Newly-Discovered Wasp Gives Sting To Insect World

By Ahmad Fuad Yahya JAKARTA, March 26 (Bernama) -- A new species of wasp, discovered by a team of scientists in Indonesia, has given a sting to the insect world. Dubbed the 'king of wasps', the monster wasp was found in the remote Mekongga mountain range of Southeastern Sulawesi, late last year. The 'Megalara garuda', named after the republic's national symbol, garuda, a mythical bird-like creature, is locally nicknamed the 'Komodo dragon of wasps'. This is because, a full-grown male can reach more than three centimetres in length, boasting massive jaws which are longer than its forelegs and shaped like a sickle, English daily, The Jakarta Globe reported Monday. The 'Megalara garuda' is the subject of joint findings by Lynn Kimsey, a professor of entomology at the University of California at Davis, and Michael Ohl, from the Museum fur Naturkunde in Berlin. The findings were published last Friday, in ZooKeys, a journal dedicated to biodiversity. "Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed," Kimsey told a UC Davis publication last year after the expedition that unearthed the monster wasp. "When the jaws are open, they are actually longer than the male's front legs," she said. -- BERNAMA