Bristol zoo gets Lord Howe Island stick insect eggs in hopes of raising a colony 10,000 miles from Tasman Sea home
Monday 30 November 2015 16.56 GMTLast modified on Tuesday 1 December 201510.35 GMT
Three hundred tiny eggs – carefully packed in sterilised sand – have been flown from Australia to the UK as part of an attempt to save one of the world’s rarest insects.
Bristol Zoo Gardens has taken delivery of the consignment of Lord Howe Island stick insect eggs and hopes to raise a colony of the intriguing creatures 10,000 miles from their home in the Tasman Sea.
The species, which is also known as a “tree lobster”, was wiped out on Lord Howe Island after rats from Europe swam ashore from a stranded ship in 1918. It was thought to be extinct forever until a small colony was found on Ball’s Pyramid, a volcanic outcrop just off the island in 2001.
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