Jungle warrior wasp with massive mandibles discovered

Waspzilla ... the 'Garuda' was found on the remote Indonesian island of Sulawesi

IF you're making a trip to Indonesia any time soon, beware – a new waspzilla has been discovered there with jaws longer than its front legs.

The warrior wasp is found on the remote island of Sulawesi and has been dubbed the 'Komodo dragon' of the wasp family.

And for good reason too - males of this stinging species measure an alarming two and a half inches long and have huge ninja-like mandibles.

Some bite ... the wasp has jaws longer than its legs

Lynn Kimsey, entomologist of the University of California, Davis, encountered these fearsome flying beasts when on an expedition to the island.

"Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male's front legs. I don't know how it can walk."

Although these pesky pests mainly chomp on insects, if threatened they could leave a considerable mark on human flesh too.

Ms Kimskey intends to name the mini-beast 'Garuda' after the part-human, part eagle mythical creature that is a national symbol in Indonesia.

The wasp was discovered in the Mekongga Mountains in south-eastern Sulawesi, a little-explored Indonesian island between Borneo and New Guinea.

Bigger ... the warrior wasp measures 2.5 inches long

Ms Kimskey describes it as one of the top three islands for biodiversity in the world, along with Australia and Madagascar.

She and her team have now received a five-year £2.5 million grant to study the island's rich biodiversity that includes the dwarf buffalo and colonial spiders.

The nature fanatic hopes that the discovery of the warrior wasp will help raise awareness about how unique and treasured the region of Sulawesi is, estimating that hundreds of other new species could be catalogued.

Billionaire to build new countries at sea

ew countries at sea

Island nations ... artist's impression of what new countries could look like

A BILLIONAIRE is planning to create his own countries — by building them on giant floating platforms in international waters.

PayPal founder Peter Thiel is funding a project that intends to create new societies governed in a radically different manner from conventional states.

The communities would be run according to libertarian ideals and be housed on gargantuan ocean platforms.

According to a magazine, the islands would be a "kind of floating Petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage and few restrictions on weapons".

Giant platform ... new states would be moored in international waters

And the first experimental example of the radical scheme could be built off San Francisco as soon as next year.

Thiel, 43, who is worth an estimated $1.5billion — or £910million — has given £763,000 to the Seasteading Institute planning to build the floating nations.

Funding ... Peter Thiel

Seasteading argues that building in the ocean "is the only option to create new societies on Earth".

The institute is run by Patri Friedman, the grandson of Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman.

He argues that "government is an inefficient industry because it has an insane barrier to entry. To compete with governments on existing land, you have to win a war, an election, or a revolution."

Thiel admitted that many saw the idea of creating societies in the ocean as a crackpot scheme.

He added: "There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible.

"That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."