With Insects its quite easy to be overlooked, with that being said Austrian scientists have identified a previously unknown species of moth living almost 2000 metres above sea level in the Italian Alps, which they believe has not changed in its appearance for 130 million years.
Scientists believe that the brightly-coloured moth has survived for so long because of the remote mountaintop location where it still continues to exist.
The Pizzo Arera mountain is in the Bergamasque Prealps in northern Italy has a southern facing slopes made of Limestone, and is also known for a large number of endemic plants and animals. Because of this the scientists think that this moth may be classed as endemic to the mini ecosystem located on this mountain, an area of the Alps that never experienced glaciation.
This prehistoric moth, at 4mm long, has been called, by the team at Tyrolean State Museum, Micropterix gaudiella. It belongs to a family of prehistoric moths that are the most ancient species of butterflies known to the world. they named the moth after the Latin gaudium, meaning to enjoy something or to have fun, due to the delight that they experienced learning of the discovery of the new species. Many of the new plants and animals found each year are on microscopic levels and the discovery of a compleatly new insect to science is becoming quite rare.
The moth has bronze-coloured wings with purple patterns running across the metallic colour, making for a striking animal. It eats pollen, particularly favouring roses, and only flies during sunlight hours. The Tyrolean State Museum that has a world-famous collection of butterflies and moths which includes 8,000 different species and more than 1,000,000 individual specimens were extatic to have contributed such an iconic moth to science.