Tiny new moth species hidden on a Portuguese roadside stuns scientists

Tiny new moth species hidden on a Portuguese roadside stuns scientists

On a summer night in July 2020, at a small silting lake in central Portugal, a moth trap strung with a mercury vapour light began attracting a handful of tiny, unremarkable brown moths that no one could put a name to. Five years later, those anonymous little insects have a formal identity: Monochroa monellii, a species new to science, described in the journal Nota Lepidopterologica by Martin Corley and Jorge Rosete. The discovery is a reminder t…