News / Animals
World’s rarest insect hatches at Bristol Zoo
One of the world’s rarest insects has successfully hatched at Bristol Zoo for the first time, providing a glimmer of hope for the critically endangered stick insect species native only to a remote island in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
A batch of 300 tiny Lord Howe Island stick insect eggs arrived at the zoo back in November as part of an international effort to save the species, which was thought to be extinct for almost 80 years until its rediscovery in 2001.
This particular species of stick insect was completely wiped out on its native island after European rats ran aground from a stranded ship in 1918.
The eggs at Bristol Zoo are all descended from a breeding pair known as Adam and Eve, which were rescued from Ball’s Pyramid, a volcanic outcrop off Lord Howe Island, in 2003. Now there are thought to be just 40 individual stick insects left there, in one small bushy area alone.
The first hatchlings have now started to emerge from the batch, sent from Melbourne Zoo to establish a captive breeding program in Europe as part of a global conservation programme to prevent the species from becoming extinct.
The 38 tiny hatchlings are between one day and two weeks old, with more babies being born every day.
After hatching, the stick insects are around 2cm in length, bright green, and emerge from pea-sized eggs in the early morning, when there would be fewer predators around in the wild.
The young stick insects will moult over time, going from green to brown and finally jet black. They will mature in seven to eight months, when Bristol Zoo hopes to be the one of the first collections outside of Australia to successfully breed the species.
Mark Bushell, curator of invertebrates at Bristol Zoo, said: “To see these precious stick insect nymphs finally emerging from their tiny eggs is absolutely incredible, a real career highlight.”