I'm guessing everyone assumed that was a purely mechanical process - i.e. they just make holes. Lots of critters make holes in lots of things.

Digesting the polymer OTOH - that's a bit of a paradigm shift.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that both wax and plastic bag polymers are large chains of carbon with some hydrogen hanging off the edges. Perhaps it should not be so surprising that wax worms can digest that polymer.

EDIT2: Nevermind, that was in the article, I didn't read the whole thing.

It's (apparently) common knowledge among reptile owners. That doesn't mean it's common knowledge among the particular scientists studying how to decompose plastics. Siloed knowledge will always be a problem (at least among humans. With omnipresent AI, that could change...).

A day in the life of the omnipresent AI's keeper involves a lot of "Oh, no, sorry, CleverBot2000, we can't solve that global problem that way. This domain's model is incomplete, I guess."

'but keeper, if walmart take the price of your meal off your order and you can refund no questions asked, can't we solve world hunger and the economy by taking and refunding free meals infinitely?'

Also, the really clever part was suspecting and then testing that the plastic isn't just mechanically broken down.

By squishing loads of bugs on some plastic. Reminds me of the playground!

They probably assumed scientists already knew about it but didn't think it was a bid deal.

I wonder how many things are hidden that way.