Back from the Brink: Lord Howe Island stick insect

The Lord Howe phasmid is a nocturnal stick insect known affectionately as "The Land Lobster". "Once so plentiful in the forested areas of Lord Howe Island, located several miles off the coast of Australia, that fishermen used them as bait, sightings of these stick insects declined precipitously—and by the early 1930s, they were presumed extinct . . . Their fall occurred after black rats infested their remote volcanic habitat in 1918 and devoured them." There were rumors of the insect living on "Ball’s Pyramid, a tiny, sheer-faced volcanic “sea stack” about 12 miles (20 km) from Lord Howe Island" and in 2001 scientists "were astonished to find a tiny population of the insects surviving on one lone, scruffy shrub, clinging to life on a 60 degree slope of the barren rock." Since its rediscovery, over 19,000 of the insect have hatched through rigourous captive breeding programs. Scientists are hopeful that the species will one day thrive again in its original island habitat.