Detecting long tail bugs under the ground with cheese bait

Scientists trapped a new animal belonging to the two prongs of a long tail in a cave in Turkmenistan.

Scientists have discovered a new animal with six feet of insects in a cave in Turkmenistan thanks to the bait of cheese, according to UPI.

The new species is called Turkmenocampa mirabilis , in which mirabilis means "unusual, wonderful" in Latin. This is the first time an organism of the Diplura or two pronged long tail bugs has been discovered in Central Asia.

New animals discovered in caves in Turkmenistan.(Photo: UPI).

Scientists found this animal in the Kaptarhana cave located in a low hill at the foot of the Koytendag Range, a mountain range extending from southeastern Turkmenistan to the Uzbek border.

It is a diverse collection of deserts, canyons, mountain peaks, limestone caves and sinkholes. The team believes that this largely untapped area can hide many new animals.

Kaptarhana Cave is very large and, according to the naked eye, there are no animals living here. However, the team managed to trap Turkmenocampa mirabilis when using cheese as bait.

"We found a very strange new creature. Not only that, it is also a special animal living in a cave, having experienced a very long evolution to adapt to the underground environment of the Central Region. Asia, " said Alberto Sendra, a biologist at Alcalá University.

Many biologists believe that the underground cave fauna in Central Asia is very poor, said Pavel Stoev, a researcher at Bulgaria's National Museum of Natural History.

Places like Kaptarhana can change this concept by bringing new perspectives on biodiversity, the evolutionary history, the formation and operation of the underground ecosystem here.