OMG! I am not afraid or get creep-ed out with practically ANYTHING! But that sir, would send me screaming like a nine year old girl. Ever seen those Camel Spiders? They have the same effect on me.

Great Find.

This island is like the living embodiment of "Skull Island" from Peter Jackson's King Kong remake - jagged nightmarish island crawling with gigantic insects... But it's always amazing the way life can cling to such places, after we're done nuking ourselves into oblivion at least some life will go on.

Great read...

Interesting insect...

This part specifically...very penguinesque...

Patrick "showed me photos of how they sleep at night, in pairs, the male with three of his legs protectively over the female beside him."

Beauty is apparently not only exoskeleton deep

What a nifty story. I love the part where the males sleep with three of their legs around the females. Who would have thought bugs would spoon. I hope they find a wonderful place to release them in.

UberL33t, I see we posted almost the same thing lol

Hides? Nothing can hide from man!
We find life, kill that life, then find 52 different ways to eat that life, then we put it on the Food Network.

I think newly discovered creatures untouched by man's influence always look amazing, no matter how many legs and stomachs they have.

Great photos! Oh wait.

It's very bizarre to think of an entire insect colony built around one single clump of bush. It may be a good thing scientists managed to breed these in their zoo, in case their island habitat is wiped out, but they did manage to hang on for decades on their own.

I can't even stand to look at it, its so nasty looking. We have thin green stick insects where I'm from. They're creepy enough. I wish the rats would of been a little more thorough in their search to eliminate the nasty creeps! Not really, I don't mean that. - j/k lol smiley face - I'm glad they found a few survivors of the stick apocalypse. (It seems that the male bug still tries to protect female from the threat of rats, even years after the 'hard times" like its bred into them now. or maybe they are still trying to hold on to each other so they wont roll of the rock in their sleep. J/K) Rats always end up ruining everything.
I can't help but think of The Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, etc. You know, all of the things that supposedly went extinct. If these insects could survive and sustain a tiny population on the side of that rock, for over seventy years, maybe the mystery creatures of the world could also be hiding a small population out there.

TXML

crazy, i swear ive read about them before, the extinct ones anyway.

maybe its just the article being vague and the writer assuming people wont care to get into the details(or maybe they didnt understand it well enough themselves).... but i would simply HAVE to assume that the bugs that went extinct on the larger island were not the same bugs as these. they may have been extremely similar as they come from the same source, but based on what i have seen of other animals spread out on different islands like this.. they are always a tiny bit different depending on how long ago the populations split. (hello, Charles Darwin anyone??)

i would hazard the guess that the extinct bugs were truly as large as they were described, because they were on an actual island with plenty of food and plenty of room to spread out.... while the ones on the rock, only had that one bush, so of course they would have become bit smaller to cope with that.

but if they put the new bugs on the old island, after a few generations they might grow to their old sizes.

which, obviously, might not make the people living there too happy.. but... lol.


id rather have giant bugs than giant rats... but thats just me.

ps- that video drove me crazy, just watching it trying to pull its feet out.... felt like it took an hour.

Blackmarketeer
Thanks for such a wonderful thread..I don't like insects but these gigantic insects are neat..I really liked the live birth video hard to believe something that big can come out of something so small it took to long i wanted to reach down and help pull it out.. .peace,sugarcookie1

It really is huge! I have an idea on how they might have gotten to the island. I spoke with a biologist a few years back on how fish get into ponds that have no fish. The larva gets attached the ducks and geese legs as the feed and when the land in the next pong..fresh eggs drop off.
Possible a seagull or some sea bird transfered them out there. Neat insect.

Ewww bugs... but great island. Looks like those in movies, volcanic islands.

is this a new species entirely? nice find OP.

i like insects, wonder what they eat up in that cliff?

Hey thats cool, did you see the picture of the worlds largest cricket?



I guess if you leave bugs alone for long enough with no predetors they get all fat