Scientists Make Discovery On Tiny Island That Leaves Zoologists Stunned (Video)

(N.Morgan) Our world is filled with wonders and amazing things that are yet to be discovered. This is the strange tale about an odd animal in an even odder place. 

The photo below was taken at a real place in the South Pacific, near the eastern coast of Australia. The island is called Ball’s Pyramid, and it looks like a castle rising out from the sea. It is the remains of an ancient volcano.

As unreal and magical as it appears, this place truly does exist, looking like the epitome of an inhospitable environment, but this strange place turns out to be the site for the resurrection of an entire species. 

Ball’s Pyramid as photographed by satellite.

Some background history: On nearby Lord Howe Island (about 13 miles away) lived a big, ungainly bug. It was a type of stick bug, and could reach a size of 12 centimeters with a shiny black exoskeleton. European settlers named it the “tree lobster” because that’s what it looked like. It was harmless, although not very attractive.

In 1918, a ship ran aground on the island. The ship was eventually repaired, but not before some of the traveling rats escaped their floating home. With no natural predators on the island and an abundance of delicious tree lobsters, the rats quickly settled in. In two years’ time, there were no tree lobsters left.

Or so it was believed.

The bugs are somewhat intimidating due to their size, but are completely harmless and even kind of friendly.

However, in 2001, two scientists, David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile, and their assistants decided to check out Ball’s Pyramid. Since the 1960s, climbers there had reported seeing evidence of the tree lobsters. However, there was no evidence to be found at the time.

The scientific team scaled the rocky cliffs of Ball’s Pyramid—no easy task by day, but they also climbed at night, since tree lobsters are nocturnal. Their searching finally paid off. They discovered 24 living tree lobsters, in their enormous glory, clustered around one of the few, spindly bushes still growing on Ball’s Pyramid.

“It felt like stepping back into the Jurassic age, when insects ruled the world,” Carlile said.

No one is sure how they originally ended up on Ball’s Pyramid. They might have hitched rides on birds, or stowed away on boats. Yet there they were, chilling on their bush in the middle of nowhere.

After some deliberation about moving them, four of the insects, two males and two females, were taken off the island and brought to Australia and the Melbourne Zoo. One pair passed away, but the remaining pair, nicknamed Adam and Eve, apparently hit it off, and soon Eve started laying eggs. Though there was a scare when she got sick, Eve recovered, and the stick bug population began to take off. By 2008, there were 700 adults and 11,000 eggs. Scientists also noticed that unlike other bugs, tree lobsters like to pair off, and even sleep cuddled up to their mating partner.

Currently, there are tentative plans to release the tree lobsters back on the larger Lord Howe Island. However, there are several issues face that effort. First of all, the rats are still in residence on the larger island, so they would have to be removed. Secondly, the human residents of Lord Howe Island are a little less than keen on the prospect of these giant, prehistoric-looking stickbugs showing up in their yards and homes.

As a result of the latter, there is actually a PR campaign in the works which aims to make people feel a little more welcoming of tree lobsters. The tree lobsters might not be the cutest creatures out there, but hopefully they will soon start thriving in a natural outdoor habitat.

References:

viralnova.com

NPR

https://youtu.be/Eg3dcYJ2oI4

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