An Amazing Discovery
Fourteen-year-old Davis Marthin Damaledo found a new species of stick bug.
Davis Marthin Damaledo
Davis Marthin Damaledo shows off his discovery.
Stick insects aren’t easy to find. Their twig-like bodies help them hide from hungry predators. But during a hike with his dad in 2021, 14-year-old Davis Marthin Damaledo spotted one of these amazing insects. Even more incredibly, the insect Davis found belongs to an undiscovered species!
Davis found the stick insect on the western side of the island of Timor in Indonesia. The teen, who loves nature and is fascinated with insects, thought this one looked unusual. He decided to gently pick up the insect, along with its eggs. When he got home, Davis contacted Garda Bagus Damastra. Garda is the founder of a science collective (an organization people can join in order to share scientific information) that focuses on certain types of insects, including stick insects. Excited to hear about Davis’s discovery, he contacted three entomologists (scientists who study insects).
Together with Davis, the group named the new species of stick insect Nesiophasma sobesonbaii, after a 19th-century ruler of Indonesia, and set about studying it. This included monitoring the eggs Davis had collected and watching as they hatched and the young stick insects grew to adulthood. The full-grown insects can reach 14 inches (36 centimeters) in length!
Davis Marthin Damaledo
Like other stick bugs, Nesiophasma sobesonbaii blends in with its surroundings.
In 2023, the researchers wrote about the newly discovered species in a scientific journal. They said the species probably lived all over the island of Timor, where there are likely many more species that are still unknown. Davis, who by that time was 17 years old, was named in the article as the person who discovered Nesiophasma sobesonbaii.
“I am proud that my hobby is useful for science,” Davis told Mongabay.
