• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

big stick insects?..common in UK?

A

Anonymous

Guest
last week a friend comented that she had found a dead stick insect which was a bout 4" long on the path to her house...its been prity warmish here in cornwall so i presumed it died of cold one night after excapeing....untill she said it wasnt as big as the one she found last summer, that one was 6" long! alive and climbing on the wall...and shed seen them the summer before too.... can they live in UK?
 
small ones used to escape from their case when I was at primary school.

adults about 9/10 cm long.... all died in the cold as far as I know.

never thought of them going feral but why not, if it's warm or they maybe find a heating vent or something?

Kath

PS just a thought... it was a dead one huh? not a stick?
 
I seem to remember that the legs come off and it doesn't seem to bother them. Although I don't know how one would express distress come to think of it.

They also have to loose them in a sensible fashion otherwise they go round in circles or end up propped up on the one side.

Aren't they .... not bi sexual.... not ambidextrous... sounds like haematite, hammerite, haemadryad, haemoglobin....


someone help me out here, why is it that aphasia seems to be the only word I never get stuck on?

wah! :-(

Kath
 
stonedoggy said:
Aren't they .... not bi sexual.... not ambidextrous... sounds like haematite, hammerite, haemadryad, haemoglobin....


someone help me out here, why is it that aphasia seems to be the only word I never get stuck on?

wah! :-(

Kath
Click to expand...


Hermaphrodites? :confused:
 
surely zero to six inches in one season isnt posible?...the huge one must have been wandering about for longer than one year?
 
sidecar_jon said:
surely zero to six inches in one season isnt posible
Click to expand...

Dunno mate. We can do it the other way round in seconds when it's really cold...:D
 
stonedoggy said:
Aren't they .... not bi sexual.... not ambidextrous... sounds like haematite, hammerite, haemadryad, haemoglobin....



Kath
Click to expand...

Parthenogenic - they can reproduce without the need for males, laying eggs which develop without fertilisation and hatch into females only, which mature and repeat the process.
This site has a lot of usefull info:
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/phasmida.html
 
Can a veggie eat Stick Insect soup too, Taras?!:D

Hey, it's part stick!:p
 
hermaphrodite is what I thought I meant, parthenogenic is what I acctually meant. I think. Still a good selection of words there tho :) Any one know how losing words and trying to get them back functions? what does Tip Of The Tongue actually imply?

Years ago my stick insects went from egg to 10cm in a few weeks... which was full size. Maybe they go 0-max in a season regardless of how big max is?


As for you Mr Raven..... words fail me :-D


Kath

PS sidecar - did she chuck it or could you get a picture? or even keep it for use in an installation? They just dry out, not decay nastily.
 
stonedoggy said:
PS sidecar - did she chuck it or could you get a picture? or even keep it for use in an installation? They just dry out, not decay nastily.
Click to expand...

unfortunately it fell into the least fortean family hands posible...she just binned it.
 
We have huge green grasshoppers down here, or maybe they are crickets? what's the difference.? anyway they are around five inches or so long, one used to chirp in the bush just outside my window, he's vanished for the winter now.
 
may be Locusts?... seen in truro a few years ago aparently.
 
No def. not locusts, they are exactly like the drawings in Kitt once-is-name's book where you had to track down a golden hare buried somewhere. I have a photo of one somewhere, if I find it I'll post it.
 
brian ellwood said:
No def. not locusts, they are exactly like the drawings in Kitt once-is-name's book where you had to track down a golden hare buried somewhere. I have a photo of one somewhere, if I find it I'll post it.
Click to expand...

Ooh I saw one of those once when I was cycle touring in Cornwall. It was perched on one of my panniers, but sprung off before I could get my camera. It had a huge face and looked just like Jiminy Cricket! (sorry) I looked it up in my insect book. It is a cricket, I can't remember what kind, I'll try and find it tonight. It was something unimaginative like "Great Green Cricket" I think
 
Most stick insects are parthenogenic, i.e. essentially all female. They are self fertile and produce offspring without the male contribution.

In the case of the Green Stick Insect, which is most likely the type that occurs wild in the UK (it is known in Sheffield anyway), is only fertile for about 20 generations, after which a male is needed to inject new genes into the group. Despite its name, these critters occur in shades of both green and brown, and can live for a year to a year and a half. I am assuming the eggs could overwinter quite well in the leaflitter of forests or gardens.
 
Masquerade, yes,tnx, that's the one, just as in there.Still haven't found my photo of one, but they really are big and impressive. Once a friend was playing his home-made zither in the garden one evening, and the biggest green cricket (tnx Min) jumped onto his head and then onto the zither, maybe the sound vibrations attracted it, though it didn't join in. :D
 
(i tried to post the exact link, but i wasn't able to do it) anyway, taht esasyexotics.co.uk site quoted in one of the first posts sells (among all the other insects) cockroaches. now that's curious. i understand stick insects, but cockroaches??? (if anybody's intetrested i have a little colony dwelling in my house...)
 
Mmm, lucky you Ginoide:cross eye

I have heard that cockroaches do indeed make good pets for children, being famously hard to kill etc. Also, as pets, they are clean and don't carry disease. Don't fancy it though.

Brian, I think it was a Great Green Bush Cricket I saw
http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/content-1598

Another whopper of the insect world is the Large Marsh Grasshopper, it is not quite as big and not quite as green.
http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/dorset/Text/photopages/higher hyde insects/09.html

Both are confined to the south of England.
 
MIn: Definitely the first rather than the second. Thanks. I have seen them every summer in Kernow since I moved down here nearly 20 years ago, and was gobsmacked by the first one I saw:D I've taken several close-ups of them but can't find prints or the negs. (lost when I left my ex and moved house?)
I would think down here would be ideal for stick insects, but not seen a wild one yet...
 
Used to have stick insects as a kid, given a good summer they could go from egg to adult quiet easily, Cornwall probably warm enough for them to survive a mild winter, and think the eggs could as well.
Believe the difference between grasshoppers and crickets is that grasshoppers are veggies and crickets are carnivours.
 
more news!... she found a 5" brown stick insect last week, alive and crawling up a neigbours house by the front door. Her house is acrossa road from the first and with no foliage round it and none within about 10 yards.The week before two live green ones, smaller and about 3" long, on the back of her house... there have definately been frosts this winter, but they have survived.
 
more news!... she found a 5" brown stick insect last week, alive and crawling up a neigbours house by the front door. Her house is acrossa road from the first and with no foliage round it and none within about 10 yards.The week before two live green ones, smaller and about 3" long, on the back of her house... there have definately been frosts this winter, but they have survived....shes under instructions to keep any further captures.
 
If people have found this amount (given their camaflauge sp?) you could have a thriving colony in your area!. Try releasing some Europeon Tree Frogs next.!(No I did'nt really say that)
 
we has a quick serch of the garden and found nothing... all the finds have been on walls (maybe as the walls maybe warmer?).. the smaller ones were bright green and the larger brown, which makes sense, start green and new shooty and end up brown and twiggy.
 
that colour change fits with my experience - and they's have to get up off the ground to be clear of frosts?

Kath
 
Right on both counts, walls keep heat, and the higher up they are the less suseptable (sp?) to true ground frosts.To a natural history buff this is really exciting, good grief I must get out more!.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top