South Africa is a pretty awesome place. Where else in the world could a new life form be discovered in a truck stop wall, for instance? The green guy above me is called a Mantophasmatodes. He has a face similar to a praying mantis and a body similar to a stick insect. Wikipedia explains the traits of this little creature best:

Mantophasmatodea is a suborder of carnivorous African insects discovered in 2002, originally considered to be a new order, but since relegated to subordinal status, and comprising the single family Mantophasmatidae. The most common vernacular name for this order is gladiators, although they also are called rock crawlers, heelwalkers, mantophasmids, and coloquially, mantos. Their modern centre of endemism is western South Africa and Namibia, although a relict population, and Eocene fossils suggest a wider ancient distribution.

The guy who discovered them is a German biologist named Oliver Zompro. Zompro has done something more amazing than finding a rare new order of animals. He has discovered a common order of animals that everyone else had missed, a discovery in plain view. Read his full story, as well as other facts about this wonderful new discovery here.

[Source: Scientific American]