A moth dismissed by the leading expert on its group in 1927 as “better neglected” remained overlooked in London’s Natural History Museum for nearly a century—until a label beneath it revealed that Alfred Russel Wallace had collected it in Borneo around 1855, and DNA from one surviving leg helped scientists identify a genus containing 11 species new to science.
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A moth dismissed by the leading expert on its group in 1927 as “better neglected” remained overlooked in London’s Natural History Museum for nearly a century—until a label beneath it revealed that Alfred Russel Wallace had collected it in Borneo around 1855, and DNA from one surviving leg helped scientists identify a genus containing 11 species new to science.

By the time Edward Meyrick examined a small white moth in London’s Natural History Museum, somebody had already…