Giant stick insect saved from extinction A colossal stick insect, assumed extinct for 80 years, has been found in the wild, bred in captivity, and now has a population of over 700 awaiting possible repatriation. Dryococelus australis, commonly known as Tree Lobsters thanks to their tough carapace, are native to Lord Howe Island, a pacific speck belonging to Australia …
Have some really curious behaviour, from wiki "The males and females form a bond; the males follow the females and their activities depend on what the female is doing."
To me this suggests basic emotion. If so - emotion in an *insect*? The possibility of that is fascinating.
Just me?
.
.
Righto. The one with an eHarmony for arthropods membership in the pocket.
Nah, it's mate tending. Making sure your genes are the only ones fertilising her eggs. Of course that is the base condition for pair bonding and if the males are motivated by a hormonal/neural signal that is likely to be a 'feeling'. Now ask if they are self aware enough to notice.
The interesting thing is they pair bond but don't care for the offspring. This leaves mate tending as the only viable explanation for the practice.
2 of the 4 died, according to the linked article, so its worse than that.
This species effectively became extinct aeons ago when new preditors evolved, rats and probably many others. A tiny population survived on a small, totally isolated island, as a throwback to prehistoric times.
Fair enough trying to breed them to study them, but it is difficult to see how they will survive in the wild. Their time has been and gone. I don't think you can blame evil humanity for this one, it is just evolution.
What I am saying is that they are already as good as extinct for reasons which probably don't have anything to do with us. They aren't exactly bristling with defence mechanisms, so when they encounter any creature which enjoys eating crunchy insects, they have pretty much had it. Could just as easily have been migrating birds as imported rats. Presumably they evolved before this was so much of a problem.
They are nearly extinct because they aren't viable. Yes human intervention has made it a bit awkward for the only remaining population on a tiny remote island, but that population only existed through pure fluke.
Evolution isn't some moral process that is being subverted there - so the rats came on ships and the ships were built & sailed by people but the rats might have been birds and the birds might have been blown by freak winds, it's not relevant (in evolutionary terms - we might choose to consider ourselves to have done something wrong but we haven't sinned against evolution).
There has been a change in their environment that they are not equipped to cope with and they have died out - that's (a part of) evolution.
...and everyone here resisted temptation to make some reference to tree octopus.
I am proud of my fellow commenters.
On another note, it is refreshing to hear about saved species for once. No chance of finding a pair of Queensland wolves somewhere? After all, they are pronounced extincs only since 1937.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
