© Natural History Museum, London
The Splendeuptychia ackeryi butterfly, or Magdalena valley ringlet, whose distinguishing feature is unusually hairy mouthparts.
A mustache on a butterfly has tipped off curators at the Natural History Museum in London that a specimen in their collection for 90 years actually belongs to a new species.
A curator found the disguised insect, initially collected from the dry Magdalena valleys of Colombia, among the 3 million butterfly specimens at the museum where it had lain undiscovered.
Blanca Huertas compared the mustachioed specimen with a recently found wild specimen, allowing her to identify the older specimen as
Splendeuptychia ackeryi, or Magdalena valley ringlet, whose distinguishing feature is unusually hairy mouthparts. (The name
ackeryi is dedicated to Phil Ackery, the former collection manager of the butterfly collections at the museum.)
