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Date: April 02, 2015 at 22:38:04
From: kay.so.or, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years |
URL: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/02/24/147367644/six-legged-giant-finds-secret-hideaway-hides-for-80-years |
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about the stick insect, Dryococelus australis
They call it "Ball's Pyramid." It's what's left of an old volcano that emerged from the sea about 7 million years ago. A British naval officer named Ball was the first European to see it in 1788. It sits off Australia, in the South Pacific. It is extremely narrow, 1,844 feet high, and it sits alone.
What's more, for years this place had a secret. At 225 feet above sea level, hanging on the rock surface, there is a small, spindly little bush, and under that bush, a few years ago, two climbers, working in the dark, found something totally improbable hiding in the soil below. How it got there, we still don't know.
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.
pictures and article at the link about saving a species...
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Date: April 14, 2015 at 16:11:13
From: Eve in FL, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years |
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We have or did have I have not seen any...the worker ants I think have
killed them all here (construction peoples)...stick insects. I had a
professor back in midwest where I went to collect who was an
entomologist, had a love for mantis and he said they were a type of
mantis here in FL (we have both kind, the praying or preying kind and the
stick mantis)...he asked me if I saw one would I please freeze it and send
it to him? I think I did...icky. Now days I would not but he had this dead
bug collection. Geez...I hated that part the most as I minored in Biology
that I had to make a dead bug collection. To do that one captures a live
insect. Freezes it in a baggie. Examines it to find it's scientific name and
places it on a board with a pin through it after it died in the freezer and
put's the name under it. If one gets the scientific name right....there is
the grade. One had to get so many of certain kinds. So glad spiders are
not insects. But the butterflys...whah....so glad it was time of year I could
not capture one as they were sparse and for that we were forgiven.
This guy was head of the Biology Dept. A class made for me as I needed
only one hour was scientific illustration as I am a natural at artsty stuff,
watercolors my fav. He wanted a praying mantis eating a grasshopper,
but I just did a nice mantis on a branch and he was happy.
It's kinda sad here I guess we have such little ones no one much notices
they gone missing. I used to see them now and then but not for years,
think the construction wiped them out. Have not seen any of those clear
tiny scorpions I used to see rarely either. Or maybe the other critters are
hungry and overpowered the few.
Anyone live in Louisiana remember giant black grasshoppers? They came
out every year and they were all over the road and one could hear them
crunch. There were so many, not like one could move them or steer out
of the way. Glad they were not keen to follow folks around. Sad they did
not know the rules of crossing the road and to walk a little faster.
Did not mean to hijack your thread kay...I thought was interesting. I
now is well they thrive to an extent, but I am not one to cuddle them. I
have known a man who thought they were all that...my professor in
college, he loved roaches...used to order giant ones from South America
and show them to the class. We were like uh, thanks sorta.
Well, I guess it's good someone is into it so they can keep them around.
the ^ legged are not so ew to me, I think lady bugs kinda cute...and
butterflies..some so pretty but they don't start that way. Dragon
flies...zoom zoom.
~Eve
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