To anyone with a phobia of insects reading this article, we’re so, so sorry.
Australian researchers deep in the country’s wet tropics have identified a new species of stick insect – and it’s absolutely huge.
Not only is it about 16in (40cm) long, but it also has a wingspan comparable to a small bird’s, and it weighs 150% more than the next-heaviest Australian insect.
The new species, named the Acrophylla alta, was found in high-altitude trees in the wet tropics region of Queensland.
Professor Angus Emmott from James Cook University, who helped identify the species, said the insect had probably remained undiscovered for so long because of its remote habitat.
He told MailOnline: ‘They live high up in the rainforest canopy, and accessing that is almost impossible.
‘You’ve got to wait until, for instance, a bird knocks one down or you get a big storm and they get knocked down. It’s very, very hard to find them in situ.
‘Their body mass likely helps them survive the colder conditions, and that’s why they’ve developed into this large insect over millions of years.’
The females of the species, much bigger than the males, weigh around 44grams – much bigger than Australia’s next-heaviest insect, the giant wood moth, which weighs in at about 30grams.
But despite their large wingspan, Professor Emmott says they’re ‘not really great flyers’ because of their ‘heavy bodies’ weighing them down.
To be able to identify the species, the researchers’ next step was finding a male – but because the males are so different to the females, they had been considered a different species of stick insect altogether.
There was only one way to be sure the male and female were of the same species, and that was to catch them while mating.
Professor Emmott explained: ‘You really need to find the male copulating with the female.
‘You know what it is then, and you collect the eggs and you can actually ascertain that they’re one of the same thing.
‘Every species of stick insect has their own distinct egg style.
‘They’ve all got different surfaces and different textures and pitting, and they can be different shapes. Even the caps on them are all very unique.’
So, not only did the researchers need to watch the insects have sex, they also needed to snoop on their eggs to make sure they definitely had a brand new species on their hands.
A specimen of the Acrophylla alta is now part of Queensland Museum’s collection – but it could be one ‘untold’ numbers of insect species which have gone undiscovered.
‘Up here in the tropics, in northern Australia, we’ve got so many insects that are as yet undescribed,’ Professor Emmott said.
‘For instance, I’ve got an undescribed cicada in the garden here that a friend of mine is in the process of describing, and I’ve been working on the moths up here as quite a number of them are undescribed.’
Trying to study the new species has its challenges, as stick insects by nature stay very still during the day to look like, well, sticks, to avoid being eaten by birds.
Researchers end up trekking through the rainforest at night wearing head torches to stand the best chance of seeing them.
Because of this, it’s also not yet known how long the Acrophylla alta live for.
Professor Emmott said: ‘We don’t actually don’t know that yet, but I imagine only a couple of years maximum.
‘Because, yes, there’s a lot of pressure on them with birds looking for them and eating them all the time, and I guess that’s why they’re so cryptic.’
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