Many amazing insects inhabit the planet. However, the Australian giant stick insect or tree lobster is probably the most unusual. He confidently claims to be the first in the dispute with the New Guinea thorn-footed stick insect as the longest insect.
Modern scientists considered giant stick insects to be completely extinct. The width of the tree lobster reaches one and a half meters, and the length is 12 cm. For the first time, amazing creatures were discovered in 1788 on Lord Howe Island.
Amazing find
Almost completely woody lobsters disappeared by 1918. Insects could not fly, they had no enemies in nature, so the stick insects were destroyed by ship black rats.
In 1960, the remains of insects were found on the island of Balls Pyramids. Entomologists have not been able to find a single living specimen there. For this reason, stick insects have been classified as an extinct species. However, it was decided not to stop the expedition in order to find at least the remains of the giants.
A new attempt to search for the amazing inhabitants of the planet was made in 2001. A team of rescuers, including entomologists Nicholas Carlisle and David Pridedel, hardly moored to the rocky islands from the sea side and landed. The expedition was crowned with success: lobsters were found on the outwardly sail-like island of the Pyramid of Ball, the highest volcanic cliff on Earth.
New research
Lobsters again amazed researchers, choosing the only option that gave the right to life. Although there is a "but" here: scientists concluded that the inhabitants of the island had no chances of normal food in the area in which the only bush grew. Researchers found fresh pits in the ground and tried to find stick insects again at night.
The colony consisted of 24 individuals. Biologists, not without reason, feared that by a miracle the surviving relic insects would die from frequent squally winds on the rocks, but the fears, fortunately, did not come true.
A special program was developed to restore and preserve the population in natural conditions. The problem was that biologists at that time did not know anything about the lifestyle of stick insects.
There is no more threat
In 2003, one of two pairs of insects found on the Balls Pyramids was sent to Sydney, and the second was transferred to the Melbourne Zoo. Before the giant new "Australian" hatches from a miniature egg, it must mature for six months.
Observations helped to find out that adults eat only one of the shrubs. Lobsters are nocturnal.
Scientists have managed to bring the population at the Melbourne Zoo to a thousand individuals. Several thousand more are maintained in the embryonic stage. Wood lobsters are no longer considered an endangered species. Grown stick insects are planned to be exported into the wild and then settled on Lord Howe, one of the most beautiful volcanic islands in the Pacific.
But this measure will be carried out only after the area is completely cleared of black rats, which have become the worst doctors of insects, completely harmless, although outwardly and fearsome.
