A stick bug¹ from the island of Borneo measuring well over a foot in length has been identified by researchers as the world's longest insect, British scientists said Thursday.

The specimen² was found by a local villager and handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist³ Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989, according to Philip Bragg, who formally identified the insect in this month's issue of peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. The insect was named Phobaeticus chani, or Chan's megastick, in Chan's honor.

Paul Brock, a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London unconnected to the insect's discovery said there was no doubt it was the longest still in existence. That assessment⁴ was also confirmed by Marco Gottardo, an entomologist at Italy's Natural History Museum and Aaron T. Dossey, a researcher at the University of Florida in Gainesville who studies the insects.

Looking like a pencil-thin shoot of bamboo, the dull-green insect measures about 22 inches, if its twig⁵-like legs are counted. Its body length is 14 inches, beating the previous record held by Phobaeticus kirbyi, also from Borneo, by about an inch.

Stick bugs⁶ have some of the animal kingdom's cleverest camouflage⁷. Although some use noxious⁸ sprays or prickly spines⁹ to deter¹⁰ their predators¹¹, generally the bugs assume the shape of sticks and leaves to avoid drawing attention.

Their main defense¹² is basically hanging around, looking like a twig, Brock said. It will even sway in the wind.