Behold the ‘tree lobster': Rarest insect on earth now on view in North America for the first time

For years, scientists thought that the Lord Howe Island stick insect was extinct, the subject of predation by invasive rats on the remote island off Australia, but then a few were discovered on a nearby "sea stack" called Ball's Pyramid.

After careful conservation, the six-inch-long stick species is recovering and, for the first time in North America, on view at the San Diego Zoo.

"For more than a decade, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s entomology team has collaborated with Australia’s Melbourne Zoo to maintain populations of the critically endangered Lord Howe Island stick insect," the zoo announced in a recent news release regarding the rarest insect on earth.

Fortunately for Lord Howe and the rest of us, four of the bugs were brought to the mainland of Australia, including a pair of the so-called "tree lobsters" that were delivered to the Melbourne Zoo, which then, in turn, began sharing eggs with San Diego back in 2012.

After a successful hatch, the insects are born as bright green nymphs, which molt, then molt again and again for more than half a year before transitioning to nocturnal dark, glossy brown-black adults, who forage at night and hide out during daylight hours.

Invasive rats "originally extirpated them from Lord Howe Island," but the folks down under have been rat-catching "diligently" since 2019, and many species have experienced a period of renewal on the island, with plans progressing to return the Lord Howe Island stick insect to the wild there as well.

It was British Lt. Henry Lidgbird Ball, of course, who was commanding a First Fleet Ship, Supply, and on his way to the Norfolk Island penal colony back in 1788 when he discovered the uninhabited island, which he obediently named after his senior officer Admiral Richard Howe, with the dutiful lieutenant lending his own moniker to that nearby sea stack, Ball's Pyramid, from which the bug hero of our story was rescued.