The "rarest insect in the world" also happens to be freaking enormous

[n2doc]

In 1918, a battered British supply ship was forced to run aground off the coast of Lord Howe Island, a volcanic remnant located hundreds of miles off Australia's eastern seaboard. There, the ship's crew was received by the island's famous Dryococelus australis, a positively massive, hand-sized species of stick insect known to Europeans as "tree lobsters." But these impressive bugs were not long for this world.


In the nine days it took the ship's crew members to repair their damaged vessel, a pack of stowaway rats had managed to jump ship and invade the island. A scourge had been unleashed upon the D. australis population. By 1920, the island had been overrun by rats, and the insects had vanished. The tree lobsters of Lord Howe — long believed to be endemic to the island — were presumed extinct.

But in 2001, scientists made an incredible discovery.

About thirteen miles southeast of Lord Howe sits another island, named "Ball's Pyramid," that would look right at home on the cover of a Tintin comic. It was here, about halfway up the island's precipitous, 1800-foot-high slope, that researchers discovered what is believed to have been one of the last bastions of tree-lobsterdom in the entire world: a collection of two dozen of the enormous black insects, huddled beneath the shelter of a single bush.


more

http://io9.com/5889341/the-rarest-insect-in-the-world-also-happens-to-be-freaking-enormous

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Uh...fuck that!!

[roguevalley]

10. I can't imagine the shoe you would need. Saying that and having grown up in a house filled

with black widows and having ZIP regard for insects, I hope someone saves them. They are obviously beloved of God because they are so frickin' big.

[TheMastersNemesis]

13. Big Spider

There was supposedly a spider as big as a cat during the dinosaur age.

[Maven]

14. "I can't imagine the shoe you would need"

[Piasladic]

32. Poor critter....nc

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Their a little horrid looking ,but

their home is beautiful !

[Kolesar]

3. Kind of sad...eom

[glinda]

11. Yes. Very sad.....

[xchrom]

4. Cool! Nt

[laconicsax]

5. AAAAAH! MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!

[Auggie]

6. Even New York City cockroaches would run from those things

[Downtown Hound]

7. I think I saw those things in Peter Jackson's King Kong.

Only they were less scary in the movie.

[yodermon]

8. now do they *taste* like lobster, that is the question. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. I'm glad it's rare.

In general I am not freaked out by bugs but I would make an exception for this one.


EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

[Motown_Johnny]

12. Is Lord Howe island still infested with rats?

Because if not then maybe those should be relocated. It seems obvious that one small colony under one bush can't expand and probably won't survive for long. One little landslide and they become extinct.

I guess I am not as freaked out by bugs as some others here. I think they look cool and am impressed by their size. I would love to see them reestablished somewhere.

[Canuckistanian]

18. They've already bred them in captivity

There are now over 700 of them and they're going to attempt to re-introduce them to Lord Howe island.

[pnwest]

15. the only thing scarier than those bugs is the

unibrow on the guy holding them in the photo...d'joo get a load o' that?

[parkia00]

16. They shouldn't have released this news

now hoards of mountains climbers will descend on the island to make it up the peak... cause it's there.

[Phil1934]

17. Phil

I was more freaked out by the unibrow

[FredStembottom]

19. Apparently, handling them leads to uni-brows.

[GiveMeFreedom]

20. Breaking News ...

Bear Grille, the famous TV survival show host, is flying to "Balls" Pyramid, to dine on the Tree Lobsters. Asked why he would want to do this, his reply was "The tree lobsters look disgusting, but filling. I won't have to eat for a week after dining on these morsels"

-sarcasm tag goes here-

[LiberalEsto]

21. Quick - where's the Flit?

If one of those got near either of my daughters, the shrieks would be heard from DC to Lord Howe Island.

[Ratty]

22. Unibrow alert!

Geez, dude. Google "manscaping"

[magical thyme]

23. torn between grossed out and sadness

at the description of the last survivors huddling under the lone bush.

I'm glad to read that they've been bred in captivity and will be released onto Lord Howe Island. A place I plan to NEVER VISIT

[progressoid]

24. Fuckin radiation.

[AtheistCrusader]

25. It's cool and all, and I don't have a problem with them being around

but you couldn't pay me to pick it up with my bare hand.

Maybe with my welding gloves on.

[HopeHoops]

26. They won't bite you anymore than a praying mantis or a walking stick would.

[AtheistCrusader]

27. I've been told that about various insects before.

Just before the 'chomp'.

They rarely break the skin, but some of these little guys can be downright pinchy.

[HopeHoops]

28. Yeah, well, hermit crabs pinch sometimes too, but it is mostly social.

Our rabbit (a hermaphrodite cottontail I rescued as a kit) rarely bites at all, and only when I'm checking his teeth. He's never broken the skin with his teeth. His claws are lethal. I used to look like a heroin junkie. He rarely breaks the skin anymore, but he is coming up on six years old.

On Edit: and the only type of spider I don't like is the little black kind with the tiny abdomens and big blue or green teeth looking things in front (not teeth by the way). They LOVE human blood and particularly your back - a nice little trail of nibbles that itch for weeks.

I'll handle any other kind including tarantulas. I've never seen a brown recluse, but there's a reason they are called that. Black widows aren't in my field of personal experience.

[n2doc]

29. video of one hatching...

http://io9.com/5889804/the-birth-of-an-enormous-tree-lobster-is-an-absolutely-alien-experience

http://player.vimeo.com/video/14413689

[Solly Mack]

30. Bugs!

I like bugs.

[in venere veritas]

31. That thing is sooo cool

I want one