Given the intense pressure that climate change is placing on vulnerable species, there is growing concern about the loss of biodiversity. Each year, species go extinct, and the rate of loss has been increasing. Scientists in Australia, however, have reason to celebrate as they have confirmed that a species that was once thought to be extinct is in fact still living.
The Lord Howe Island stick insect (Dryococelus australis), which lived on Lord Howe Island, Australia, was thought to have gone extinct around 1920 due to pressure from invasive black rats that arrived by ship. However, a possible surviving colony was discovered in 2001 on a small nearby island.
A study published in Current Biology in October 2017 confirmed that the living insects are in fact the same species as once lived on Lord Howe Island, rather than a similar, but distinct, subspecies.
Scientists had long dreamed of returning Lord Howe Island to its previous state by eradicating the black rats and other invasive species and reintroducing the Lord Howe Island stick insect. These new findings suggest that if this reintroduction is performed, not only will Lord Howe Island resemble the way it looked before human interference, but the Lord Howe Island stick insect will return to its home.
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