A stick bug from the island of Borneo measuring well over 30 centimetres in length has been identified by researchers as the world's longest insect.

British scientists say the specimen was found by a local villager and handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989.

Philip Bragg, who formally identified the insect in this month's issue of peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa, says the insect was named Phobaeticus chani, or "Chan's megastick," in Chan's honour.

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