What Are Stick Bugs?
There are a lot of insect species in this world. (Over 925,000 species discovered thus far!) Among those are stick bugs. Stick bugs are in the order Phasmatodea, which is Latin for ‘apparition’ or ‘phantom’ due to their ability to blend into their environment. There are also two sub-orders of stick insects. One is Euphasmatodea, which is then divided into four superfamilies. The majority of stick bug species are in that order. The other, timematodea, consists of only one genus of stick bugs called timema. The only thing that makes the 21 timema species separate from other stick insects is that their body has their body divided into 3 segments rather than 5.
Stick bug species are the most abundant in tropical and subtropical regions. Some stick bug species are pretty wild. Here are some of my favorites:
Achrioptera maroloko, which is found in Madagascar, is a rare and colorful stick bug species.
Timema poppense, also called “The Pop Valley Timema” is a stout-bodied wingless stick bug that is native to the far western United States. The rest of the timema suborder look fairly similar to this one without that much variation. I think that it looks cute due to its plumper appearance.
Cryptophyllium westwoodii is a leaf insect that, not only mimics, the shape of leaves, but the veins of leaves too! I think that it looks pretty neat and it would be extremely difficult to spot.
phasmas gigas is massive! It is found in found in the Malaku Islands, gorong Islands, and Kei Islands. It is one of my favorites because it is so large and colorful.
Achrioptera manga is found in Madagascar. I like this species of stick bug because the males have a beautiful blue coloration. The females are green.
And lastly is Parabacillus hesperus or the ‘western short horn walking stick’. It may look plain compared to its other cousins, but I am partial to this species. This is the species I take care of. Due to being able to reproduce through parthenogenesis (ability to reproduced asexually) I ended up with a ton of babies!
