Giant prickly stick insect
The giant prickly stick insect is a big Australian stick insect covered in thorny spikes. The female is chunky and as long as a pencil, and she hangs among the leaves with her tail curled over her back. When the wind blows, it sways from side to side just like a leaf.
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Fun facts
Its babies look and run like ants, with an orange head, a white collar and a black body.
The female flicks her eggs away with her tail, and you can hear them click against the glass in a tank.
Ants carry its eggs into their nest to eat a tasty coating, and the eggs then hatch safely there.
When scared, it curls its tail up like a scorpion and can let out a smell like toffee.
A female can lay eggs even without a male, but then all the babies are girls.
Most asked questions about Giant prickly stick insect
?Does the giant prickly stick insect bite?
No, but it can pinch with its spiny back legs when it feels in danger.
?How big is the giant prickly stick insect?
Females grow to about 20 centimetres long. Males are thinner and about 11 centimetres.
?Can the giant prickly stick insect fly?
The males have long wings and fly well. The females' wings are too small to fly.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Extatosoma tiaratum
- Group
- Stick and leaf insects
- Family
- Phasmatidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Phasmatodea > Phasmatidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Spiny leaf insect, Macleay's spectre, Australian walking stick
Where the facts come from
- Extatosoma tiaratum (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 Rosa Pineda. 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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