A giant centipede disappeared 126 years ago, but researchers found it in the wild. New butterfly species have been discovered in the Kuril Nature Reserve. A new, terrifying giant insect may be the heaviest ever recorded in Australia.
A conservation group’s search has uncovered another 20 forgotten species in Madagascar’s forests. An estimated 4,300 species have fallen from scientific memory, meaning they haven’t been seen in the wild for decades. However, they are likely not extinct.
In an effort to rediscover some of these species, an expedition led by conservation organization Re:Wild explored Madagascar’s Makira Natural Park, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.
Within weeks (followed by months of data analysis), the team discovered 21 previously “missing” species, including a 10.8-inch-long millipede that scientists had overlooked for decades.
Makira Nature Park is a 930,000-acre ecological wonder in a country already renowned for its near-explosive biodiversity. This forest is home to seventeen of the island nation’s endemic lemurs, as well as 50 percent of the country’s plant species. It was in this forest, 126 years ago, that entomologist Henri de Saussure and naturalist Leo Zentner first described Spirostreptus sculptures—a giant, dark-brown centipede that would likely star in a classic insect horror film.
The species was then lost to science. While that doesn’t mean locals didn’t see this nearly 30-cm-long centipede wandering nearby, scientists searching for the specimen never found it again.
Tuan Tran. Re:Wild
This continued until September 2023, when Re:Wild—a conservation organization founded by scientists and, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio—took to the forest. The organization’s “Search for Lost Species” program, which involved experts from various institutions and local guides, searched for the millipede and many other animal species lost to science. The team spent several weeks in the jungle and then spent several months analyzing data in search of these vanished creatures.
“The Search for Lost Species project previously focused on searching for one or two species per expedition, but we now know of 4,300 species worldwide that have gone undocumented for a decade or more,” said Christina Biggs, a species specialist at Re:wild, in a press release. “Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot, and Makira is a poorly studied area of the country, so we decided to pilot a new model for searching for lost species there.”
And on this expedition, luck was on their side. The team not only found a particularly large specimen of S. sculptures, measuring approximately 10.8 inches in length, but also rediscovered 20 other species of spiders, beetles, fish, snails, and weevils. Although the giant centipede was the longest-lost species, many other animals rediscovered during the expedition had similarly disappeared for over a century. For example, a species of jumping spider, identified as Tomocyrba decollata, had not been seen since 1900. Echinussa vibrabunda, a non-jumping spider, had been missing since 1901.
But this expedition wasn’t just a rediscovery. The Re:Wild team also stumbled upon something completely unexpected—a previously unseen species of zebra spider. This is a particularly exciting find, as zebra spiders (named for their zebra-like coloring) were not thought to inhabit the rainforests of Madagascar.
“I immediately knew this was something special,” Brogan Pett, director of the SpiDiverse working group at the BINCO Biodiversity Inventory for Conservation, said in a press release. “The hanging egg sacs are one of the distinctive features of the zebra spider family, to which this new species belongs. I crawled around the cave a bit and saw several adult spiders guarding the egg sacs. These were quite large spiders, and it’s surprising they had gone unnoticed for so long.”
While these expeditions and discoveries of new species are a welcome relief from the deluge of bad news that defines our lives during Earth’s sixth mass extinction, they serve as a reminder of the importance of protecting wild places and working to preserve the planet for all species. Fortunately, these 21 species are not gone forever, merely hidden in some of the world’s most magical natural settings.
New butterfly species have been discovered in the Kurilsky Nature Reserve, two of which have been recorded for the first time in Russia. Scientists from the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences have discovered more than 15 new butterfly species on Kunashir Island in the Kurilsky Nature Reserve. Experts note that Kunashir’s late-autumn fauna remains poorly studied.
“Late pre-winter butterflies emerge when nighttime temperatures drop below freezing, following frosts that gradually become permanent. The emergence of such butterflies is a unique feature of Far Eastern nature,” the scientists explained.
Press Service of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation
According to the press service of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, four expeditions have been conducted to Kunashir Island, the first of which took place in 1989. The subsequent three were conducted in 2019, 2022, and 2023. Each expedition led to important discoveries.
“In 2022, experts collected nearly 50 new species for the island, several of which were new to Russia’s fauna. Specialists confirmed that the unique wild silkworm butterfly has not completely disappeared from the country,” the press service of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources reported.
Researchers have discovered a giant stick insect living at high altitude in tropical North Queensland. Acrophylla alta reaches a length of approximately 16 inches and is a strong contender for the title of heaviest insect recorded in Australia.
This giant creature, named Acrophylla alta by researchers, reaches a length of about 40 cm. The giant insect lives in the inaccessible treetops of tropical North Queensland, which perhaps explains why it has eluded scientists for so long.
Researchers described A.alta in a recent study published June 17, 2025, in the journal Zootaxa, describing it as a “spectacular new species.”
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On Thursday, an Australian university announced the discovery of a new species of stick insect, weighing about the size of a golf ball, in the tree canopy of a remote rainforest in northeastern Australia. Scientists believe this winged insect, Acrophylla alta, is the heaviest ever discovered.
This isn’t the longest stick insect in Australia—that honor belongs to the giant stick insect (Ctenomorpha gargantua), which reaches about 57 cm in length and inhabits the same region as A. alta. However, A. alta is heavier. Longer stick insects are also found in this region, but they are quite light. As far as is known to date, this insect is the heaviest insect in Australia.
Researchers believe Acrophylla alta is a record-breaking insect. James Cook University
One individual in the study weighed about 1.6 ounces (44 grams) — about twice the size of an egg-laden adult female giant stick insect that researchers had previously documented, according to the study.
Researchers discovered A. alta in the North Queensland plateau region, at elevations ranging from 500 to 1,200 meters above sea level. According to the study, A. alta appears to feed on leaves in the forest canopy, where it typically remains undetected by humans.
“It’s restricted to a small patch of high-altitude rainforest, and it lives high in the tree canopy,” Emmott said. “So unless a cyclone occurs or a bird brings it down, very few people will see it.”
The creature’s gigantic size may be related to its ability to survive in colder, high-altitude environments. This is consistent with an evolutionary trend known as Bergmann’s rule, which posits that animals evolve to become larger in colder climates. Not all animals follow Bergmann’s rule, and it’s unclear how well it applies to insects, but the idea is that larger animals have a smaller surface area-to-volume ratio, which helps reduce heat loss—which would certainly have been beneficial for A. alta.
They live in cool, damp environments. Their bulk likely helps them survive in cold conditions, which is why they evolved into these large insects over millions of years.
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