This impressively sized insect could well have disappeared a few years ago. If he survived, it is thanks to an exceptional natural phenomenon.
This large insect quite simply almost disappeared from the face of the earth. This unique and fragile population was rediscovered in 2001 although specialists thought it had been extinct since 1986. Today, it is greatly threatened but maintains hope of survival in the volcanic zone of Ball’s Pyramid. The San Diego Zoo, for example, invites visitors to discover this little-known species. “Bringing our guests closer to this rare and iconic species is a great way to raise awareness about the lesser-known animals that run the world,” says Paige Howorth, an entomologist at the San Diego Zoo.
Unfortunately, Ball’s Pyramid, due to extreme natural disasters like landslides, is not an ideal environment for this wild Lord Howe Island stick insect, as that is the species it is. Also called “tree lobster”, there are only 20 to 30 left in the world. And the Australian area in which it lives is unfortunately not full of sufficient food for the species to develop quickly.
These stick insects once gathered on the branches of Moreton Bay fig trees and woolly tea plants off the east coast of Australia. But the large, hand-sized stick insect proved to be the rats’ favorite meal during the 1918 invasion. “The shipwrecked rats feasted, multiplied, and feasted again, until that no “tree lobster” is found.
The rats also devoured other native species until they no longer existed on the island, including five birds, two plants and 12 other invertebrates,” continues Paige Howorth. But then, how did Lord’s wild stick insect Did Howe survive? This is probably linked to the female’s ability to “clone” through parthenogenesis. In other words, asexual reproduction in which the reproductive cells of certain animals develop into embryos without being fertilized. , they have the same genetic heritage as the mother: the descendants are then clones. This is precisely the technique used by our “tree lobster”.
In 2003, a rescue team safely extracted four black stick insects to begin a massive breeding program. Together, the Melbourne, Bristol (now closed) and San Diego zoos established a captive population, which now numbers in the thousands. Since 2019, there have also been massive efforts to eliminate rats on Lord Howe Island using rat detection dogs. “What’s happening is an ecological renaissance,” Lord Howe Island resident Hank Bower told Laura Chung of Sydney Morning Herald in 2022. “There is a vine that we didn’t know what the fruit looked like.
People take photos of insects and send them to the Australian Museum. They say we only have three listed, but we see hundreds. Everything is flowering, all the plants are flowering and we see a carpet of seedlings.” Today, the zoos hope that their now-growing populations will be used to redirect the insects to their island once it is rid of the last rats.