Thought To Be Extinct for 80 Years – Scientists Rediscover a Unique Insect

Long believed to be extinct on the main island of Lord Howe Island, the wood-feeding cockroach was found at the foot of a single Banyan tree.

A University of Sydney biology student has uncovered a large, wingless, wood-eating cockroach that was believed to be extinct since the 1930s and is unique to Australia’s Lord Howe Island.

“For the first 10 seconds or so, I thought ‘No, it can’t be’,” said Maxim Adams, an Honours student under Professor Nathan Lo at the University of Sydney’s School of Biological Sciences. “I mean, I lifted the first rock under this huge banyan tree, and there it was.”

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“We found families of them, all under this one banyan,” said Senior Scientist Nicholas Carlile of the NSW Department of Planning and Environment (DPE), who was with Adams exploring North Bay, a secluded white, sandy beach only accessible by foot or water. “In fact, Maxim and Nathan were there for the rest of the week, looked under every other banyan in North Bay, but didn’t find anything.”

University of Sydney Honours student Maxim Adams under the banyan tree where they made the surprise discovery. Credit: Nicholas Carlile/NSW DPE

The rare Lord Howe Island wood-feeding cockroach (Panesthia lata), which was previously common across the archipelago, was believed to have become extinct when rats arrived on the island in 1918. Over the next several decades, searches uncovered scattered populations of close relatives on two tiny offshore islands. However, the rediscovered group is genetically distinct from them.

“The survival is great news, as it has been more than 80 years since it was last seen,” said Lord Howe Island Board Chair Atticus Fleming about the find, first made in July 2022. “Lord Howe Island really is a spectacular place, it’s older than the Galápagos islands and is home to 1,600 native invertebrate species, half of which are found nowhere else in the world.

“These cockroaches are almost like our very own version of Darwin’s finches, separated on little islands over thousands or millions of years developing their own unique genetics,” he added.

University of Sydney Honours student Maxim Adams holding one of Lord Howe Island’s wood-feeding cockroaches discovered (Panesthia lata). Credit: Justin Gilligan/NSW DPE

Although they may not be cute and cuddly, cockroaches play a crucial role in the island’s ecosystem by recycling nutrients, accelerating the decomposition of logs, and serving as a food source for other animals. For this reason, the experts have been looking into the viability of reintroducing them from the offshore islets to the main island. Now, they no longer have to.

“There is still so much to learn,” said Professor Lo, head of the Molecular Ecology, Evolution, and Phylogenetics (MEEP) Lab in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences. “We are hoping to study their habitat, behaviors, and genetics and learn more about how they managed to survive, through further experiments on the island.”

The wingless cockroach is 22-40 mm long, with a metallic body color that varies from reddish to black. Australia hosts 11 species of Panesthia wood cockroaches, powerful burrowers that live inside and feed on rotten logs in rainforests and open forests in coastal northern and eastern Australia.

University of Sydney Honours student Maxim Adams (l) and New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment scientist Nicholas Carlile (r) under the banyan tree where they made the surprise discovery. Credit: Justin Gilligan/NSW DPE

They carry specialized micro-organisms in their guts that help digest the cellulose in the wood. Females give birth to nymphs which stay in family groups with the adults. But the unique arthropods behave differently and may have been misnamed.

“Despite its common name suggesting they are wood-feeding cockroaches and that they burrow in rotting logs, we now believe they are more of a ‘rock-roach’, with rocks forming an important component of their habitat, possibly due to their co-evolution alongside the ground foraging Lord Howe Island Woodhen,” said the DPE’s Carlile, who was part of the team of scientists that rediscovered the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect in 2001 on Ball’s Pyramid, a volcanic outcrop 23 km off the coast of Lord Howe Island.

The University of Sydney led the research in partnership with the NSW Department of Planning and Environment and the Lord Howe Island Museum.

The research was funded by the Australia and Pacific Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council.