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A large walking stick insect thought to be extinct since the 1920s has been successfully bred in the U.S.
Lord Howe Island stick insect eggs started hatching this week at the San Diego Zoo, according to zoo officials.
"It's a very emotional story about an animal that most people don't get emotional about," Paige Howorth, curator of entomology at the zoo, told NPR.
The Lord Howe Island stick insect was wiped out within two years after rats landed on the shore of the island during a shipwreck in 1918.
Sightings of the insect’s skeleton were reported during the 1960s on a remote volcanic rock formation 14 miles away from Lord Howe Island.
The insect, nicknamed tree lobster, could grow up to the size of a human hand and was the heaviest flightless insect, according to NPR.
It was not until a night rock climbing excursion that scientists were able to verify and document the species was rediscovered in 2001.
Scientists found a colony of 24 of the insects clinging to Ball’s Pyramid, a narrow, nearly 2,000-foot-tall rock formation. Four of the insects were taken into captivity for breeding in 2003. One pair at the Melbourne zoo, named Adam and Eve, survived.
Melbourne Zoo officials have shipped 13,000 eggs to zoos in San Diego, Toronto and Bristol as part of an international breeding program.
"By sending the eggs overseas we are aiming to set up insurance populations in Europe and North America, to help ensure the future of the species," Kevin Tanner, Melbourne Zoo director, told Yahoo News.
The history of the tree lobster is a hopeful story of survival.
“It’s a very romantic story,” zookeeper Rohan Cleave told NPR. “In that there’s always hope that one day they may go home.”
However, a return to Lord Howe Island would mean getting rid of the rats, something residents are hopeful of doing.
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