Stick Bugs (Part 2)

Stick insects are common in Queensland and some parts of New South Wales and Victoria. There are several species around, but what makes them a good pet is the fact that they are easy to keep. They eat eucalyptus leaves mostly and do not run around. They do not require lighting or heating. The females are parthenogenetic, so they lay eggs even in the absence of males, and they lay lots of them! It is one of the most touching things to sit in the room where we keep the bugs and hear the eggs drop one at a time, maybe every 20-30 minutes, through the eucalyptus leaves, like the drops of water falling from the canopy to the ground of the rain forest. These insects are large (our "monster female" is 28 cm long, legs included), and therefore, they move slowly. Males fly only when forced to do so, and then they sort of do it in a vertical position, with fan-like wings awkwardly flapping in the air. If threatened, stick bugs pretend to be a wooden stick by extending the front legs in front of the head and standing still or sometimes swaying as if they are a twig in the wind. In our very large cages, life can get crowded, as you see, and stick and leaf insects cannot tell each other, just holding on to whatever they think is a stick or a leaf...