A newly discovered species of stick insect is about as long as a person’s forearm and about as heavy as a golf ball. Naturally, this ginormous insect lives in Australia, home of massive spiders, venomous snakes, and crocodiles. Named Acrophylla alta, the new stick-insect species lives in North Queensland’s Atherton Tablelands.
A research professor from James Cook University was one of the people who discovered the stick insect and helped describe it in a recent research paper published in Zootaxa. Professor Angus Emmott says A. alta weighs around 44 grams, making it Australia’s heaviest insect, as far as he knows.
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Emmott and his colleagues believe the stick insect has eluded scientists until now because it lives high up in the forested canopy in a remote part of Australia.
“[The species is] restricted to a small area of high-altitude rainforest, and it lives high in the canopy,” he said. “So, unless you get a cyclone or a bird bringing one down, very few people get to see them.”
See the new species, a giant stick insect in Australia, here:
Header stock image of Wuelfing stick insect in Queensland, Australia by Wendy Townrow/Getty Images