The Earth is small, but not as small as we sometimes like to think. New life forms are discovered all the time, right under our noses. One of them was discovered in the bathroom of a South African truck stop.
Scientific American has the story of the Mantaphasmatodes—a newly discovered order of life, whose story takes you from fossil hunting in Germany, to leaf-turning in the South African wilderness. It's a cool look at what biologists do, and why identifying a new species, let alone a new order, isn't simple work.
