Giant leaf insect
The giant leaf insect looks exactly like a leaf that is starting to dry up. It is flat, green and wide, with brown edges like a wilting leaf. It is one of the biggest leaf insects in the world.
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Fun facts
The females have no back wings and cannot fly.
A female can lay eggs without a male, and her babies are almost all girls. Only about 1 in 20 to 500 babies is a boy.
Its eggs are shiny dark brown and look like seeds. The mother just drops them on the ground.
The eggs take six to eight months to hatch.
The males live only a few weeks to three months, while the females live six to ten months.
Most asked questions about Giant leaf insect
?How big is the giant leaf insect?
The females grow to almost 12 cm long, the males up to about 8 cm.
?Why does the leaf insect look like a leaf?
So that birds and other hungry animals think it is just a leaf and leave it alone.
?What does the giant leaf insect eat?
It eats leaves from bushes and shrubs.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pulchriphyllium giganteum
- Named by
- Hausleithner, 1984
- Group
- Stick and leaf insects
- Family
- Phylliidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Phasmatodea > Phylliidae
- Lives on
- Asia
- Also known as
- Giant Malaysian leaf insect
Where the facts come from
- Pulchriphyllium giganteum (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Drägüs. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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