Rats that escaped from its deck onto Lord Howe Island quickly dominated the local environment, eliminating species lacking natural predators. One of their victims was the stick insect Dryococelus ...

When the SS Makambo ran aground on Lord Howe Island in 1918, only one person was reported to have drowned. In the aftermath, however, a slow-moving disaster was set in motion that nearly destroyed a ...

Scientists consider the Lord Howe Island stick insect, often called the "tree lobster," the world’s rarest insect. It was thought extinct after black rats coming ashore from the SS Makambo in 1918 ...

hope for the future of the Lord Howe Island stick insect. When the SS Makambo ran aground on the shore of Lord Howe Island in 1918, there was only one immediate casualty—a passenger who drowned ...

World’s rarest insect, tree lobster. Credit: Granitethighs / CC BY-SA 3.0 Scientists consider the Lord Howe Island stick insect, often called the “tree lobster,” the world’s rarest insect. It was ...

The island’s invertebrates also suffered immensely. The Lord Howe Island stick insect (Dryococelus australis)—once a pervasive fixture on the island—was declared extinct on the main island ...

The Lord Howe Island stick insect was once thought to be extinct, before being discovered by chance on Ball’s Pyramid several decades ago. How this flightless phasmid made the journey to this ...