ON THE WILD SIDE
STICK INSECT
TODAY I’m going to tell you about something wild, crazy and rare.
Although it’s true that many of the UK’s most weird and wonderful creatures live up in the wild Highlands, it’s not true for today’s topic… in fact, quite the opposite.
No, to see this rare and elusive beast you have to venture down to Devon and Cornwall and you’ll need the eyes of a hawk.
Friends, let me introduce to you the phantoms of the south-west, the phasmids.
So what on earth is a phasmid? Well it refers to a family of insects that exceptionally closely resemble twigs or leaves, and are slow moving, relying on their camouflage to not get eaten.
“Oh! You mean stick insects, Lily. Don’t be daft, I know those. Used to have some in the classroom in school, brought a pocketful home when the teachers weren’t looking and they ate my mum’s indoor plants.”
Yes, many of us have similar stories about these little devils, so it’s not really a surprise with how many of them ended up escaping homes that some ended up living here full time, right? Well, wrong.
The common stick insect we all remember are Indian stick insects, which do not survive in the wild.
During the early 1900s, we were importing a great deal of products of the natural world from New Zealand.
Many stick insects drop eggs out of them like poo, just dropping them wherever they feel like as they walk along eating.
Any of these items being brought into the UK could have had eggs in, and only a single egg was needed. Why? Well most species are parthenogenic, also known as asexually reproductive. That means an adult female pops out eggs without male intervention. These eggs hatch into little girl clones of the mother, which can do the same thing within a few months.
We have three species here in the UK, the most common being the unarmed stick insect, with smaller populations of “smooth” and “prickly” also living in the south-west. The unarmed stick insect is the longest bug to be found in the UK, at around 10cm. Weirdly, only one male has ever been recorded – and that was less than a decade ago in the UK. So, if you’re heading down to the south-west this summer or Autumn, look out for these incredibly elusive critters.