This colossal stick bug is real. How many more monster insects are out there?
A thousand meters up in a humid, cloud-covered forest, amidst a slew of twigs and limbs, an onlooker spotted something different—this branch had legs. But even for a stick insect, a forest dweller evolved to look like a tree offshoot, this one was unusual. They quickly snapped a picture and posted it to social media. That's how scientists first saw the creature, which is now recognized as a newly discovered species and the heaviest known insect in Australia.
'We didn't expect to find anything this big,' says Angus Emmott, a researcher at James Cook University in Australia who helped identify the insect. 'It's about the length of your forearm.'
The largest collected example of the species, now called Acrophylla alta, weighed in at 44 grams—about the weight of a golf ball. It's a third heavier than Australia's previous heavyweight champ, Emmott says, and is just a few inches smaller than the country's longest insect. 'This one definitely blends in better as a branch than a twig' says Nicole Gunter, the curator of entomology at Queensland Museum, home to two Acrophylla alta specimens.
New insect species are frequently discovered, and while nearly two million have been identified, there may be as many as 30 million unidentified insect species left in the world. Gunter's own museum collection receives newly identified insects multiple times throughout the year, but it's still uncommon to find one this large.
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Giant Stick Insect Found Hiding in Rainforest May Be Australia's Heaviest
A colossal stick insect found living in the highland rainforest of northeastern Australia could be the chonkiest (read: heaviest) bug the continent has to offer. Acrophylla alta, as the species has been named, weighs up to 44 grams (1.6 ounces) – comparable to a golf ball. In length, it measures around 41 cm (16 inches) with its legs outstretched, significantly longer than the average human forearm. "There are longer stick insects out there [in the region], but they're fairly light bodied," says natural scientist Angus Emmott, formerly of Australia's James Cook University, now retired. "From what we know to date, this is Australia's heaviest insect." The newly discovered bug makes its home high in the canopy of the Atherton Tablelands, a highland rainforest in tropical Queensland in Australia. Here, the trees are old, and can be up to 30 meters (100 feet) high. Many insect species have been understudied and overlooked, simply because their habitat is so hard for humans to access. Related: 'Bone Collector' Caterpillar Wears Dead Bugs to Steal Prey From Spiders In the case of A. alta, there's another confounding factor: in its natural habitat, the insect is extremely well camouflaged, in spite of its humungous size and weight. Because Atherton is a tropical region, however, weather events such as storms can sometimes rattle insects loose from the canopy. A. alta was discovered because amateur naturalists came across it at lower altitudes than these kinds of insects are typically seen, and uploaded their observations to iNaturalist. There, they were spotted by entomologist Ross Coupland, who recruited Emmott to investigate the mysterious species. They managed to observe and collect some specimens – and, crucially for identification, the species' eggs. "Every species of stick insect has their own distinct egg style," Emmott explains. "They've all got different surfaces and different textures and pitting, and they can be different shapes. Even the caps on them are all very unique." The insect's hefty weight, the researchers say, could be an adaptation that helps it thrive in the treetops of Atherton, where conditions are cool and wet. A higher body mass reduces the rate at which thermal energy is lost, which could be beneficial for the stick insect's egg development. Further research would be needed to confirm this theory, though. The research also underscores just how little we know about the world around us, when an insect as chonky as A. alta can evade detection for all this time. "The discovery of such a large, new species of insect is testament to the importance of protecting remaining, biologically diverse habitats and ecosystems, as there may be further species of phasmid and other insects awaiting discovery and description therein," the researchers write. Their discovery has been published in Zootaxa. Related News Evidence of World-Changing Comet Explosion 12,800 Years Ago Found in The Ocean 'Hot Blob' Heading For New York Following Ancient Greenland Rift Prehistoric Air Has Been Reconstructed From Dinosaur Teeth in an Amazing First Solve the daily Crossword
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This colossal stick bug is real. How many more monster insects are out there?
Sitckbugs are evolved to blend in with trees. This recently discovered one is the heaviest known insect in Australia. Photograph By Ross M. Coupland A thousand meters up in a humid, cloud-covered forest, amidst a slew of twigs and limbs, an onlooker spotted something different—this branch had legs. But even for a stick insect, a forest dweller evolved to look like a tree offshoot, this one was unusual. They quickly snapped a picture and posted it to social media. That's how scientists first saw the creature, which is now recognized as a newly discovered species and the heaviest known insect in Australia. 'We didn't expect to find anything this big,' says Angus Emmott, a researcher at James Cook University in Australia who helped identify the insect. 'It's about the length of your forearm.' The largest collected example of the species, now called Acrophylla alta, weighed in at 44 grams—about the weight of a golf ball. It's a third heavier than Australia's previous heavyweight champ, Emmott says, and is just a few inches smaller than the country's longest insect. 'This one definitely blends in better as a branch than a twig' says Nicole Gunter, the curator of entomology at Queensland Museum, home to two Acrophylla alta specimens. New insect species are frequently discovered, and while nearly two million have been identified, there may be as many as 30 million unidentified insect species left in the world. Gunter's own museum collection receives newly identified insects multiple times throughout the year, but it's still uncommon to find one this large.
Epoch Times
05-08-2025
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Australia is known for many 'big' things—the Big Pineapple, the Big Prawn, and the Big Merino to name but a few—but they've now been joined by the big stick insect. And unlike the other examples, this one is alive and in no way man-made. Two researchers, Ross Coupland and Angus Emmott, have discovered a new species of stick insect, called Acrophylla alta, which weighs in at around 44 grams, or slightly less than a golf ball.
