Meet Australia’s Mysterious New Giant Stick Insect: As Long as a Ruler and Heavier Than You’d Expect!
Ever wondered what it takes to be Australia’s heavyweight champ in the insect world? Meet Acrophylla alta, a giant stick insect lurking in the misty, high-altitude rainforests of northern Queensland. This isn’t just any bug—it stretches over 15 inches long and tips the scales roughly like your average golf ball, making it the country’s heaviest known insect. Now, imagine such a hefty critter hiding high up in the canopy, dodging both cyclones and curious eyes for who knows how long. It’s like nature’s own game of hide and seek, played on an epic scale. And the coolest bit? Scientists only recently caught onto this heavyweight, thanks to some relentless fieldwork by researchers from James Cook University. Could the dense canopy be concealing even more giant mysteries? It sure makes you rethink what’s still out there, just beyond our gaze, waiting to be discovered. LEARN MORE
In the high-altitude Australian rainforest, researchers identified a new species dubbed Acrophylla alta — and it may be the country’s heaviest insect.
Professor Angus Emmott/James Cook UniversityAcrophylla alta, the giant stick insect found in the Australian rainforest.
Australia is known for having freakishly large bugs — including a tarantula so big it is known as the “bird-eating spider” — but a newly discovered species of stick insect may be one of the creepiest crawlers to be found on the continent.
The creature, dubbed Acrophylla alta, measures more than 15 inches in length and weighs about the same as a golf ball, making it Australia’s heaviest known insect. It was found in the rainforest of northern Queensland, a remote, high-altitude area that kept the insect hidden for all these years.
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