I read about this a couple weeks ago. Apparently the bugs take big shits, after spotting the droppings it was only a matter of setting up a way to catch the pooper red handed (so to speak).

Interesting bugs, now they gotta convince the locals to accept them back (which is gonna be hard since they aren't exactly "cute").

I think most of the confusion over natural selection is that it is absolutely not a moral or otherwise normative statement about anything. It's just a process that someone noticed and quantified. Natural selection does not mean that we as a species should choose to let other animals go extinct based on whether or not natural selection is in play. It's a bit like saying if you drop a bomb it's right because of gravity, but if you propel a bomb towards the ground it's wrong, since gravity doesn't "really" come into play. The effect is the same either way. What has to guide our choice is whether the outcome is desirable.

What's really guiding the arguments against these bugs is the ick factor. I mean look at 'em. Eugh. But unless there's something missing from the article, they aren't pests, they're just another unique aspect of our home planet. Rats on the other hand do tend to be pests.

Edit: I'm not arguing we should drive every pest to extinction, but I doubt many people mourn smallpox like they would the bengal tiger.

No. Unless you demonstrate that rats who board boats share some genetic makeup distinct from those who don't. As far as I now, that is not so. I mean the behaviour that makes/allows rats to board boats is too much at the base, ie. it's shared by all rats and it evolved before boats.

But even if it's so, the thing here is about biodiversity. Rats are not endangered. The stick fellows are. Conserving biodiversity has lots of pros (Wikipedia it), even when ultimately it's indeed a "human thing" and there's no "real" need to do this.


Great article by the way.

They lived under the same bush for 80 some odd fucking years folks! And one can only speculate how they got there to escape from the bastard stowaway rats. They are little troopers and deserve any help they can get to survive. Even if that means leaving them alone on their rock.

In all seriousness though... Yeah, I thought it was very cool too. And I hope whatever the outcome they continue to survive on their rock. The egg hatching vid was epic. It reminded me of watching the eggs hatch in Aliens. Although they don't emerge as fast or face-huggy.

I like rats :(

Rodents as a whole are pretty cool, but rats and humans don't really mesh together very well. On their own rats are basically just harmless scavengers, but in things like cities (or ships) they can cause lots of issues. But of course the issue here isn't really the rats themselves, but rather that the rats were introduced artificially and messed up an entire ecosystem, like they've done in New Zealand and lots of other places in the Pacific. The only way to reintroduce the stick insects is to get rid of the rats first. As an example, the reason dodos went extinct was because they were flightless birds with ground nests, which made both them and their eggs ripe pickings for the dogs, and cats, and even pigs that explorers and colonists brought. Prior to that, they flourished because they didn't have any really serious predators... but they were basically just big pigeons, so they weren't able to defend themselves or their nests against those sorts of animals.

Pair bonding
‘Pair bonding’ is unusual in insects and not clearly defined, but there are
reports that adult males and females of the Thorned Devil (Eurycantha
horrida) from New Guinea, probably the LHISIs’ closest living relative, form
bonds if kept together for a period. The FAQ website www.small-life.co.uk
sites the example of “when a pair of adult New Guinea stick insects that have
been particularly close, living together as adults for a year, and then one dies
[sic]. In these situations, when one dies (of old age) the surviving stick insect
not only stays with the other stick insect as it dies, gently touching it, but
remains with the corpse for a few days afterwards. Sometimes the survivor
refuses to eat or drink and dies as well. This behaviour is not seen in New
Guinea stick insects that are not in close bonds.”

I've seen bees do this to wounded bees from their own hives when I was beekeeping. Touching them and examining them like they were trying to comfort the other bee or make sure they were alright.

These kinds of rats aren't all that cute and they are pretty destructive to boot.
I think it's the Black Mamba that also cares for its young (yep, a reptile that does this), the male may help as well, I kind of forget that part.

I think you mean the King Cobra instead, black mambas act excatly like every other snake as far as i know.

Hmm, all the resources on the net say you're right. I recall watching a documentary where they'd "disproved" this idea by watching a family of black mambas, it definitely wasn't cobras, but it could have been a different, venomous snake and I'm just misremembering. If I find the info I'll post it.

While that specific case is debatable, and I don't think it holds water, rats (both R. rattus and R. norvegicus) have evolved to be fantastically effective colonizers. They can use virtually anything edible as food and virtually any inconspicuous space as shelter. Ships offer these things in abundance. Because they have no incest taboo, and females leave the nest pregnant, a single female stowaway can found a colony on an otherwise unreachable island. Even though ships were not meant to transport rats, and rats have not evolved to seek out and use ships, ships are pretty much the answer to the rats' collective prayer for world domination :)

I must say that baby bug must've been pretty cramped in that little egg.

This is such a fucking awesome story. Thank you for sharing it :)