#dryococelus

[herpsandbirds]

Lord Howe Island Stick Insect aka Tree Lobster (Dryococelus australis), family Phasmatidae, Lorde Howe Island, Australia

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED.

These large stick insects can grow up to 20 cm (8 in) in length.

They have been thought to be extinct at various times, but have been rediscovered in remote locations on the island periodically.

The introduction of Europeans - using them as bait, and black rats - who ate them, lead to their precipitous population decline.

photographs by John Vui Fui Lo

#stick insect #phasmid #phasmatidae #dryococelus #insect #entomology #animals #nature #australia

[cypherdecypher]

Animal of the Day!

Lord Howe Island Stick-insect (Dryococelus australis)

(Photo from Melbourne Zoo)

Conservation Status- Critically Endangered

Habitat- Ball’s Pyramid

Size (Weight/Length)- 25 g; 20 cm

Diet- Melaleuca leaves

Cool Facts- Also called the tree lobster, the Lord Howe Island stick-insect is considered possibly the rarest insect alive today. By 1920, they were believed to have gone extinct after their complete eradication from Lord Howe Island due to being a popular fishing bait and invasive black rats. In 2001, these stick-insects were rediscovered on the tiny island of Ball’s Pyramid with 24 individuals found alive. Two breeding pairs were removed from Ball’s Pyramid and sent to the Melbourne Zoo and a private breeder. Further breeding programs across the world have increased their population to an estimated 9,000 individuals. As of 2018, efforts began in eradicating the black rats from Lord Howe Island with future plans of reintroducing these amazing insects to their native range.

Rating- 13/10 (One of the very few, possibly monogamous insects.)

#animal of the day #animals #insects #stick insect #sunday #september 24 #lord howe island stick-insect #biology #science #conservation #the more you know #cw: insects

[lizardsaredinosaurs]

Lord Howe Island Stick Bug (Dryococelus australis)

Lord Howe Island group, Australia

Status: Critically Endangered

Threats: invasive black rats, small population

You thought I was a stick for 80 years. Camouflage Perfection!

#bug art #insects #stick bug #artists on tumblr #australia #entomology #insect

[pleistocene-pride]

Dryococelus australis, commonly known as the Lord Howe Island stick insect or tree lobster, is a species of stick insect endemic to the Lord Howe Island Group, and the only member of the monotypic genus Dryococelus. Thought to be extinct when it was extirpated from Lord Howe Island itself by 1920, it was rediscovered in 2001 when a population of just 24 individuals was found living on the small islet of Ball's Pyramid. These stick insects were once very common on Lord Howe Island, where they were frequently collected by fishing vessels to be used as bait. They were believed to have become extinct soon after the supply ship SS Makambo ran aground on the island in 1918, allowing black rats, the primary predators, to become established. After 1920, no stick insects could be found. In 1964 a team of climbers visiting the towering sea stack known as Ball's Pyramid, discovered the recently deceased corpse of one of these stick insects. However it wouldn’t be until 2001 when an expedition to find whether any population persisted on the Pyramid was launched lead by David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile, the team discovered some 24 individual Lord Howe Island Stick insects living in and under a single under a single Melaleuca shrub some 330ft (100m) above the sea. In 2003, a research team from New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service returned to Ball's Pyramid and collected two breeding pairs, after intial difficulties captive breeding was achieved and now there are over 13,000 individuals with captive breeding programs occurring at the Melbourne, Bristol, San Diego, and Toronto Zoos as well as a special rat free habitat on Lord Howe Island. Reaching up to 8 inches (20 cms) in length and around 1 oz (25g) in weight, the Lord Howe Island stick insect is a large, flightless, nocturnal insect which has a stout body, long sturdy legs, and lack wings. Females have a broad abdomen with an ovipositor while males are more slender but have longer and thicker antennae and enlarged hind legs. Juveniles, called nymphs, are bright green for the first few months of life and active during the day; adults are a dark, glossy brown-black. They are a social and herbivorous species which feeds upon leaves, buds, and fruit, living together in groups of up to a dozen individuals. Unusual for most insects, these stick insects form bonded pairs that mate for life. The females lay up to 300 eggs in the soil which she carefully buries. Said eggs hatch around 6 to 9 months later, the young reach sexual maturity at around 7 months of age. And under ideal conditions a lorde howe island stick insect may like up to 2 years.

#pleistocene #pleistocene pride #pliestocene pride #pliestocene #cenozoic #bug #lord howe island #lord howe island stick insect #stick insect #insect #tree lobster

[hasellia]

Reblog for a bigger sample size.

Say in the tags what you voted for and if you live in or outside the US

#polls #lord howe island #I thought Lord Howe Island was a state and aparently it's not but I already made this soooo.... #state poll #australia #islands #Land Lobster #Meiolania #Kentia palms #lol added an extra E to Lord(e) Howe Island #I'm not remaking this poll though

[blubushie]

What are some vulnerable/threatened/endangered species that you think are cool? (This can include both animals and plants)

There's a few, so I'm only doing critically endangered Australian species.

The south coast underground orchid, Rhizanthella johnstonii, is native to Western Australia and one of the weirdest plansts I've ever seen. Their mature population is estimated at a max of 49, but the population is stable.

The Lord Howe Island stick insect, Dryococelus australis, was thought to be extinct since 1920 before it was rediscovered in 2001. It's considered the rarest insect in the world, and while once found throughout Lord Howe Island, it's now only found on the islet of Bell's Pyramid. They're being killed by invasive black rat population on the island, who eat the adults and young, and the estimated mature population on the island is a max 35 individuals. Efforts are being made to eradicate the rats from the island, and reintroduce mature breeding adults, since luckily this is a species that thrives in captivity. Their primary threat is invasive species.

The Wyong Midge orchid, Genoplesium insigne, is native to the Central Coast of New South Wales. Their population is decreasing, and their estimated mature max population is 19. Their primary threats are invasive species particularly predation by rabbits, habitat disturbances, and illegal collecting.

The green sawfish, Pristis zijsron, is found the northern oceanic and intertidal waters of Australia. They used to be very prevalent in the waters north of Kakadu. The IUCN doesn't list their estimated population, but it is known that it's decreasing. Their primary threat is overfishing, as their fins are used for shark fin soup, their snouts are considered souvenirs, and because their meat is often desired for use in traditional Asian medicine, specifically Chinese. Their snouts also make them get caught in fishing nets often, and they're often killed being being brought on boats because of the danger their snouts pose to humans. They're also threatened by habitat loss. This is a species culturally important to many Aborigine mobs, and a species that's often considered sacred.

The southern corroboree frog, Pseudophryne corroboree, is a frog native to the Southern Tablelands of NSW. For a frog they're unique--most frogs obtain their poisons from animals they eat, but corroboree frogs produce their own poison. Their primary threats are habitat destruction, feral animals, chrytrid ("frogkiller") funguses, and bushfires. Their max mature population is 50, and their population is decreasing.

The orange-bellied parrot, Neophema chrysogaster, is native to Tasmania, its only known breeding location. This is one of the three known migrating parrot species. Their maximum mature population is 25. Their primary threats are competition with invasive species, predation by invasive species, habitat loss, and disease.

#blu whos #blu zoo

[butchysterics]

��Here's the story: About 13 miles from this spindle of rock, there's a bigger island, called Lord Howe Island.

On Lord 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.

—

Nick Carlile and a local ranger, Dean Hiscox, agreed to make the climb. And with flashlights, they scaled the wall till they reached the plant, and there, spread out on the bushy surface, were two enormous, shiny, black-looking bodies. And below those two, slithering into the muck, were more, and more ... 24 in all. All gathered near this one plant.

They were alive and, to Nick Carlile's eye, enormous. Looking at them, he said, "It felt like stepping back into the Jurassic age, when insects ruled the world."

They were Dryococelus australis. A search the next morning, and two years later, concluded these are the only ones on Ball's Pyramid, the last ones. They live there, and, as best we know, nowhere else.”

#ecology #environment #conservation #insects #bugs #nature #it makes me so emotional when animals presumed extinct survive under the radar

[transitivo]

[entomoblog]

Un phasme géant endémique d'une île australienne - considéré comme l'insecte le plus rare du monde - pourrait bien être en train d'inverser la tendance, assurant sa survie

See on Scoop.it - EntomoNews

... cette espèce australienne de phasmes sauvages de l'île Lord Howe (Dryococelus australis) [est] passée tout près de l'extinction. Mais cet insecte le plus rare du monde fait de la résistance.

Chloé Gurdjian Publié le 15/01/2024 à 13h01

  "Comme le révèle Science Alert, on a un temps cru ces phasmes disparus, avant qu'ils ne soient finalement redécouverts 80 ans plus tard, en 2001. Aujourd'hui, la population sauvage ne compte que 20 à 30 individus, sur un affleurement volcanique presque vertical appelé Ball's Pyramid, sur l'île Lord Howe, au large de Sydney.

  Et comme l'indique le média australien, les lieux ne sont pas exactement idéaux pour accueillir une espèce en voie d'extinction, l'île étant sujette à des phénomènes météorologiques catastrophiques et à des glissements de terrain. De plus, les homards arboricoles ne mangent qu'une plante, Melaleuca howeana. Or celle-ci est "étranglée par une vigne envahissante, qui ne peut être entièrement éliminée car ses racines retiennent la terre sur les falaises".

Pourquoi le homard arboricole est-il menacé ?

Tout n'a pas toujours été si compliqué pour ce phasme australien, qui se comptait autrefois en nombre. Mais l'arrivée des rats sur l'île en 1918 a tout changé. Les rongeurs les ont dévorés, "jusqu'à ce qu'aucun homard arboricole ne soit trouvé", exterminant au passage d'autres espèces indigènes, dont cinq espèces d'oiseaux, deux espèces de plantes et 12 espèces d'invertébrés.

  Plus aperçu depuis 1920, le phasme a finalement été déclaré éteint en 1986... avant sa redécouverte plusieurs années plus tard. En 2003, des scientifiques ont réussi à capturer sans les blesser quatre individus, pour lancer un programme de reproduction.

  "Cet incroyable exploit de survie, malgré un nombre extrêmement faible dans un endroit aussi désolé, est probablement dû à la capacité de la femelle à se cloner par reproduction parthénogénétique", expliquent les scientifiques.

  -------

NDÉ

Article source

  → World's 'Rarest Insect' Makes Stunning Comeback After Near-Extinction : ScienceAlert, 14 January 2024. By Tessa Koumoundouros https://www.sciencealert.com/worlds-rarest-insect-makes-stunning-comeback-after-near-extinction

  [Image] Lord Howe Island Stick Insect (Dryococelus australis) (Zoos Victoria)

Bernadette Cassel's insight:

https://www.scoop.it/topic/entomonews?q=Dryococelus+australis

[evanesce-art]

My inclusion for the Bush Heroes firefighter charity zine back in 2020. An anthro Lord Howe Island Phasmid (Dryococelus australis) and Blistered Pyrgomorph (Monistria pustulifera).

#bugs #anthro insects #evanesce art

[aboundingabundance]

#land lobster #conservation

[earthstory]

BIG OLE BUGS MAKING A COMEBACK

In 1997, a movie entitled “Starship Troopers” was released. This movie involved Earth being attacked by giant “bug” aliens, and humans engaging in intergalactic warfare to combat the violence. Although the bug in the photo resembles something that might attack Earth, they’re completely harmless. Additionally, rather than being battled by Mobile Infantry, these insects are being rehabilitated by Australian scientists in an attempt to be reintroduced into the wild.

The Dryococelus australis, or “tree lobster”, used to roam freely around Lord Howe Island, just east of Australia, masquerading as pieces of wood. Fishermen would use these 12 cm long stick insects for bait, as they were about as long as any other bait-fish. However, in 1918, a British supply ship was evacuated on the island after being run ashore. During the nine-day repair of the vessel, a handful of stow-away black rats made their way onto the island from the ship. These furry fellas quickly discovered the tasty tree lobsters. After two years of these rats roaming and grazing, the tree lobsters presumably went extinct.

None were seen after 1920. That is until climbers scaling Ball’s Pyramid (a small but tall rock, near the island), in the 1960’s, reported seeing “recently dead” corpses of the insects. Due to the creatures’ nocturnal nature and a lack of desire to bug hunt in the dark, no follow up happened. In 2001 David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile, two Australian scientists, decided to pursue this follow up. Patches of potentially-life-supporting vegetation on the rock were visible to the men from the water. The men scaled 500 feet up the vertical face and found nothing but a few crickets. Upon their disappointed decent down the rock, the men saw what appeared to be fresh droppings of a large insect. The origin of this poop sparked curiosity and inspired a nighttime voyage to investigate. Carlile and a local ranger, Dean Hiscox scaled the rock during the dark of night to see if they could catch the owner of the poop on a midnight stroll. The men reached the bushy plant believed to be the home and saw two gigantic, shiny bodies. Beneath them were more of their friends, 24 tree lobsters total.

A few more extensive searches over the course of a couple years proved the insects on the Pyramid to be the last ones.

Logistics of the insects’ travel are still unknown, however theories exist. Another mystery is how the community thrived off of just one patch of plants. The only thing important at the moment to the scientists was the unpredictability and rarity of these bugs’ existence. The scientists immediately pushed for protection and a breeding program in order to continue the future of the tree lobsters.

The next step was to persuade the Australian government into allowing the transition of the animals. Due to the fragile state of their existence, the subject was debated until 2003. On Valentine’s Day that year the team went to retrieve four of the insects to be brought back to labs. One man received a pair which unfortunately died within two weeks of his care. The last two, named “Adam” and “Eve” were taken to the Melbourne Zoo, under the care of Patrick Honan.

Reproduction was successful after a few hiccups involving Eve almost dying, amongst other things. The population is expanding and now efforts are being made to return the insects to their original home on Lord Howe Island. However, the island is still running with the rats from before. The prominent idea to combat the rats is a mass extermination. Unfortunately, Lord Howe Island also has a human population that might not appreciate bugs that look like something out of a sci-fi movie crawling all around where they live.

There are a lot of factors right now regarding the future of these insects. However, the past is interesting and the present is fascinating. These tree lobsters have proven to be an interesting rediscovery and continue to captivate scientists and outdoorsmen like me.

-Mike

Read more via NPR: http://n.pr/1E2VgdT Photos courtesy of NPR in above link. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800916315907

#Dryococelus australis #stick insect #tree lobster #animal #science #australia #ball's pyramid #lord howe island #nature #travel #conservation #the earth story #endangered species

[cameronbrideoake-blog]

Happy to announce the start of a big collaborative research project with biologist @ken , we are working on an illustrated guide to endangered and threatened Australian invertebrates - (animals without a backbone) which includes insects 🐜, arachnids 🕷, molluscs 🐌, and crustaceans 🦐.

Pictured here is Dryococelus australis, the Lord Howe Island stick insect. Recent conservation efforts have rescued it from near extinction.

#watercolour #natural history illustration #stick insect #dryococelus australis #endangered species #invertebrate #sciart

[journal-of-an-entomologist]

Evening,

When submitting an insect for identification, be sure to upload a clear image with the entire body of the animal in the frame.

Example:

Dryococelus australis.

Common names: tree lobster, Lord Howe Island stick insect.

Note: This species was thought to be extinct for nearly eighty years, until a small population was rediscovered. Thanks to breeding projects, their numbers have reached a stable level in captivity.

Regards,

Asa Emory, Ph.D.

#((asks open)) #asa emory #the collector #slashers #ask blog #writing #((its okay you dont have to ask him about bugs lol)) #((ask him anything the heart desires)) #((pester him about stupid shit)) #((call him a nerd))

[spicyembalmedcorpsemukbang]

I memorize things in a weird way

Like, for example;

If I want to remember the scientific name of the rarest bug on Earth, which is Dryococelus Australis, I remember

dry cock loose australia is

#relatable #at least i hope im not the only one #i would laugh before stating a fun fact #bruh #why am i like this #memes #relatable memes #memorization #im so sorry #i used to remember linear functions as lines and funky

[1minnim]

I was thinking to myself and remembered the tree octopus thing (heres the site https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/) and went like “hmmm tree octopus? what about tree lobster?” but then i remembered that its a thing. then i decided to look up “tree lobster” to double check. 

what i was expecting was this - the mangrove tree crab (aratus pisonii)

but instead i got this.

the actual tree lobster, dryococelus australius guess what? it lives in Australia

its actually threatened and was believed to be extinct

#crustaceans #crabs #crab #insects #animals #tree octopus