A researcher has revealed how scientists made the discovery of a lifetime after identifying a new species of giant stick insect.

The new species of stick insect called Acrophylla Alta measures in at 40cm long and weighs about the same as a golf ball, at 44 grams.

James Cook University researcher Professor Angus Emmott helped identify the species and said the reason it hasn’t been seen before is because it’s habitat is too hard to access.

“Being a very large insect, you would think it’s very, very obvious (to spot),” Emmott said.

“It lives in the southern part of the Atherton Tablelands, which is high-altitude rainforest.

“It lives in areas up around 1000m and above, the other real reason people don’t get to see it is that it actually lives right up in the canopy, so 20 metres to 40 metres up.”

“Unless you actually get a cyclone or a storm or a bird hits one, you don’t see them down on the ground; people just don’t get to see them.”

Emmot said researchers were “very excited” when they realised what they had found. 

The professor explained how scientists were able to identify the massive insect as a new species.

“You’ve got to look very closely; a lot of stick insects look fairly similar,” Emmot said.

“Right at the back of its body, it’s got two little clasper-type things that you call cerci, and they’re quite distinctive

“The other thing that really helps is the eggs, every species of stick insect has different eggs, when you lay them all out side by side, you can clearly see the differences.”

“We got this one and he laid some eggs, we compared them, and it was very obvious that she was different apart from the other morphological.

“We were pretty excited, we found this great big stick insect that’s been hiding in plain sight.”

Scientists think the insect’s habitat could be the reason for its massive size.

“It’s a cool, wet environment where they live,” he said.

“Their body mass likely helps them survive the colder conditions, and that’s why they’ve developed into this large insect over millions of years.”