Mystery animal of the week!
Can you guess the identity of our mystery animal? And for a bonus prize, what part of the animal’s anatomy is shown in the photograph?
Photo by A. van Casteren.
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Mystery animal of the week!
Can you guess the identity of our mystery animal? And for a bonus prize, what part of the animal’s anatomy is shown in the photograph?
Photo by A. van Casteren.
Filed under Uncategorized
Madagascan hissing cockroach
Possibly the leg of a flea under an scanning electron microscope.
No wait, it’s the Madagascan hissing cockroach.
The picture does indeed show the foot of a Madagascan hissing cockroach; the original paper is available in the Journal of Insect Science (10) article 40, and stems from an undergraduate lab project undertaken by Adam van Casteren with Dr Jonathan Codd. These cockroaches use a combination of pads and pretarsal claws on the foot to adhere to a range of substrates – ideal for a species that lives in the forest floor.