There are all kinds of animals and insects that have oddly large (or small) body parts compared to the rest of them.

Most (if not all) of these adaptations are down to evolution, so perhaps it’s not so shocking that Charles Darwin was able to predict at least one of them.

In 1862, Darwin was able to posit that some insect somewhere would need a very long tongue after examining a Madagascan orchid with  nectar tube 11.8 inches long.

Obviously, a plant could not survive without an insect to help propagate it, so there must be something living in its natural habitat with a very long tongue.

Five years later, Alfred Russell Wallace was pondering the same question and figured that perhaps a hawkmoth would be able to reach the nectar.

“That such a moth exists in Madagascar may be safely predicted, and naturalists who visit that island should search for it with as much confidence as astronomers searched for the planet Neptune – and they will be equally successful.”

The hawkmoth was originally thought to be a subspecies of the Morgan sphinx moth (Xanthopan morganii), but in 2021 it was confirmed as a species of its own (Xanthopan praedicta).

Measurements were first taken from live moths in March of 2020, and when the tongue (proboscides, officially) was fully unrolled, they found one as long as 11.2 inches long.

Even the average length was 2.59 inches longer than than that of the Morgan sphinx moth.

Dr. David Lees, the co-author of the ensuing paper, describes the thrill of finding this truth.

“Imagine my excitement as I unrolled and measured the proboscis of a male Xanthopan in the Madagascan rainforest, realizing that it was probably the global record holder. The taxonomic change we now propose finally fives long-deserved recognition, at the species level, to one of the most celebrated of all Malagasy endemics.”

I’m sure Darwin was excited, too.

If he somehow knew he was validated after all of this time.1

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