Walking Sticks

For his fifth birthday, Roger was given a pair of stick bugs (with our permission).

Little did any of us know how much stick bugs are the epitome of the gift that keeps on giving.

Many Phasmatodea don’t really need a mate to reproduce, reproducing by parthenogenesis instead.

I’m not sure if that was the case with our original pair. If not, we clearly had a male and a female.

This shot is of the current generation, probably the 4th generation since the original pair came home nearly two years ago.

Yes, that is a pile of hundreds of very tiny, and very much alive, stick bugs.

Anyone want a stick bug? Easy pets to care for.

As their name implies, stick bugs tend to spend a lot of time trying to look like a stick.

Sometimes they are more successful than others. This little guy — the leaf was about 1.25 inches across at the widest point — is trying desperately to look like a bare twig hanging out in the breeze.

Not going so well.

These particular stick bugs eat rose and citrus leaves. We are careful to not allow any to get loose, but they are so small when freshly hatched (from eggs that look exactly like big stick bug poo) that I would imagine some have managed to get loose.

In trying to look like a stick on a relatively flat surface, stick bugs will typically keep at least one leg raised so that it doesn’t look like a branching twig that just happens to sit perfectly with all branch tips on the ground.

Creative little buggers, that way.

Pick a profession and perfect it. “I’m a professional stick imitator.” Good for you, little bug.

This particular stick bug is, perhaps, 2 inches from head to tail.

I had a dream last night that I was driving across Kansas near dusk and there was this giant stick bug walking across the horizon.

I believe this photo is exactly why.

In the original shot, all that grassy stuff is actually astroturf from the crab party. We roll out huge chunks of astroturf over the lawn to prevent the backyard from turning into a pit of mud (though that would likely be pretty fun, too).

Thus, I have mounds of astroturf which makes for neat photo backdrops at times.

I dropped the green channel saturation to nothing. I like the contrast. Fortunately, this particular stick bug has virtually no green pigment in it and, thus, that is a pretty accurate coloration of the little bug.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Nature, Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.