Credit: NHM

This spindly creature is the new holder of the title 'world's longest insect'. The Chan's megastick (Phobaeticus chani) was officially described in a paper last week and has a body that is 35.7 centimetres long. With limbs included, the Malaysian native stretches to 56.7 centimetres (F. H. Hennemann and O. V. Conle Zootaxa 1906, 1–316; 2008).

Phobaeticus chani breaks the record for overall length by 1 centimetre and that for body length by 2.9 centimetres. Both previous record holders were discovered more than a century ago, according to George Beccaloni, an entomologist at the Natural History Museum in London. "It is extraordinary that an even bigger species has only just been discovered," he says.