Stick Insects

Phasmid from Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Stick insect nymph (Diapheromera) from Iowa, USA.

Many walkingsticks (like this Diapheromera nymph from Iowa) are generalist herbivores, meaning that they feed on a wide variety of plants. I saw this firsthand when this phasmid proceeded to chow down on the leaves I had arbitrarily chosen as a backdrop. I politely asked it to stop eating my set, but it ignored me and happily munched away.

Freshly molted Peruvian Black Beauty Stick Insect, Peruphasma schultei, from the Siam insect zoo in Chiang Mai, Thailand. If disturbed, these unique walking sticks can spray a pungent fluid from glands in the back of their head as a defense mechanism.

This truly massive female stick insect, Diapherodes gigantea, was about 19 cm (7.5 inches) long! (Note - this is not an Asian phasmid, but rather a Caribbean one being raised in captivity in the Siam Insect Zoo in Chiang Mai, Thailand.)

Mating striped walkingsticks (Pseudophasmatidae, genus Anthericonia, possibly A. anketeschkei) from Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Camouflage level: Master. (Stick insect, order Phasmatodea, from Monteverde, Costa Rica)

Stick insect, order Phasmatodea, from Monteverde, Costa Rica. This was the natural resting position in which I found it.

Northern walkingstick, Diapheromera femorata (male), from Iowa.

A well-camouflaged stick insect forages at night in Panama.

A stick insect (Phasmatodea) seeks shelter from the rain under a leaf in Panama.

A pair of mating southern two-lined stick insects, Anisomorpha buprestoides, from the Timucuan preserve in Jacksonville, Florida.

I found this huge stick insect while on a night walk in the cloud forests of Costa Rica - at least 8 inches (20 cm) long, by far the largest phasmid I've ever seen in the wild.

A stick insect from Puerto Rico, beautifully camouflaged with mossy, lichen-like textures.