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COLD OPEN DELUXE ✦ Nº 17 / 20
The Giant Insect That Came Back From the Dead
A bug the size of your hand was declared extinct for 80 years — then found on a spike of rock in the sea.
Wikimedia Commons · PotMart186 · CC BY-SA 4.0
LORD HOWE ISLAND, AUSTRALIA
The 'tree lobster'
The Lord Howe Island stick insect is so big and heavy it earned the nickname 'tree lobster.' It once thrived on its island home — until 1918, when a shipwreck let rats ashore. Within years, the insect was gone.
Wikimedia Commons · Granitethighs · CC BY-SA 3.0
THE DISAPPEARANCE
80 YRS
IT WAS CONSIDERED EXTINCT
Declared gone forever
The rats ate the giant insects into apparent extinction. For roughly 80 years, the tree lobster existed only in old specimens and memory. Nobody expected to see a living one again.
THE IMPOSSIBLE CLUE
A spike of rock in the sea
Off in the ocean stands Ball's Pyramid — a jagged volcanic spire jutting 1,800 feet straight out of the water. Climbers had reported seeing insect droppings on it. In 2001, scientists climbed up at night to check.
Wikimedia Commons · PotMart186 · CC BY-SA 4.0
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THE FIND
About 24 of them, alive, under a single bush.
Clinging to one lonely shrub, hundreds of feet up a sea stack, were around two dozen tree lobsters — the entire surviving population of a species the world had buried decades earlier.
THE RESCUE
Bringing them back
A tiny population became a lifeline.
THE RISK
The whole species was on one bush
THE MOVE
Two breeding pairs taken to Melbourne Zoo (2003)
THE GOAL
Breed thousands to one day return them home
THE HURDLE
First, clear the rats from Lord Howe Island
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THE POINT
'Extinct' isn't always the end of the story.
Against staggering odds, a species survived on a rock in the sea and got a second chance. Nature is more stubborn — and more fragile — than we usually give it credit for.
THE RECEIPTS · THIS REALLY HAPPENED
Look it up yourself
ANIMAL
The Lord Howe Island stick insect ('tree lobster')
WIPED OUT
By rats, after a 1918 shipwreck
STATUS
Considered extinct for ~80 years
REDISCOVERED
2001, on Ball's Pyramid sea stack
THE POPULATION
About 24 individuals found
THE RESCUE
Bred at Melbourne Zoo from 2003
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DISCUSS
What do you think?
How hard should we work to bring back a species that was already 'gone'?
What does this say about how fragile — and tough — life can be?
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