Geeky Treehugger Science Stuff

[lagilman]

Ladies and gents and writers of all ages, your bit of Cool News for the Day, via NPR:
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Here's the story: About 13 miles from this spindle of rock, there's a bigger island, called Lord Howe Island.

On Howe, there used to be an insect, famous for being big. It's a stick insect, a critter that masquerades as a piece of wood, and the Lord Howe Island version was so large — as big as a human hand — that the Europeans labeled it a "tree lobster" because of its size and hard, lobsterlike exoskeleton. It was 12 centimeters long and the heaviest flightless stick insect in the world. Local fishermen used to put them on fishing hooks and use them as bait.

Then one day in 1918, a supply ship, the S.S. Makambo from Britain, ran aground at Lord Howe Island and had to be evacuated. One passenger drowned. The rest were put ashore. It took nine days to repair the Makambo, and during that time, some black rats managed to get from the ship to the island, where they instantly discovered a delicious new rat food: giant stick insects. Two years later, the rats were everywhere and the tree lobsters were gone.

Totally gone. After 1920, there wasn't a single sighting. By 1960, the Lord Howe stick insect, Dryococelus australis, was presumed extinct.

There was a rumor, though.

Link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/02/24/147367644/six-legged-giant-finds-secret-hideaway-hides-for-80-years?

Comments

[brandietarvin.livejournal.com]

FYI: The link doesn't appear to lead me to anything but a parked domain with lots of ads.

[lagilman]

*sigh* for some reason, LJ hates me giving NPR links. Fixed now.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD THAT'S A BIG BUG

and also a really great story. yay scientists!

[lagilman]

Big enough to go beyond the instinctive ack ack eek a bug! reaction to household pests, and not so large you fear for the cats and children. Perfect sized!

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

That was awesome.

I don't suppose you listened to the story about memory this noontime, did you?

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

I love this story -- very cool bugs!

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Okay, never in my life would I have believed I'd find myself rooting for a bug to be born.

It was trying so hard to get loose from that egg!

But.... but... it's a bug. A really, really big bug...

[anghara.livejournal.com]

That was EXACTLY my reaction!

[chaoticgoodnik.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm torn. On the one hand ... yay, preserving threatened species! On the other ... omg that's a huge bug kill it with fire.

[melinda-goodin.livejournal.com]

When we say Australia has some really big bugs, we're not kidding. My son kept some of the smaller cousins of these beasties for a while - the only hard thing about having them as a pet was finding the right kind of gum leaves to keep them happy.
I'm so proud of my local zoo's efforts to restore these amazing giant bugs.