Scientists recently announced they had found an enormous new stick insect in Australia. At 41cm in length and weighing 44g, the main question I heard was: “Why didn’t scientists notice something that big before now?”

The short answer is: it’s a stick. Stick insects spent over 100m years perfecting their cosplay as leaves, branches and moss. They are diabolically difficult to spot, even with fairly acute human vision. If you disturb a stick insect, its usual response is to fall to the ground and lie still. So now you are looking for a stick lying on the ground … among all the other sticks.

Scientists were alerted to the presence of this new insect, Acrophylla alta, by a photo posted on iNaturalist, the community science sharing site. Based on that image, they spent several nights tramping through a rainforest with headlamps and flashlights, hoping for a glimpse of this rare new beast. They eventually located and knocked the stick insect off of its perch, which can be 30 metres up in the tree canopy, with a long (actual) stick.

Phasmids (stick and leaf insects) are an incredible example of natural selection at work. As herbivores quietly munching leaves, stick insects are a delicious snack for many other animals. Evolution shaped the........

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