Children's Stick Insect - Tropidoderus childrenii
This page contains pictures and information about the Children's Stick Insects that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Adult female, body length 140mm
We found this stick insect on the ground just under a eucalypts tree in Wishart Outlook Park in Brisbane. We thought it was dead. When we picked it up it started to move a little bit so we knew it must be playing dead. We let it climb on a branch of eucalypts tree and take it home a few days for study. We noticed the spot where we picked it up, there was very close to a small black ants nest on the ground. There was even some ants walking on its body. But those ants seemed not know there was a meal in front of them.
- The Children's Stick Insect has short antenna, about 20mm. The whole body and wings are green in colour. The surface texture and colour is resemble to the eucalypts tree leaf. It has a fat abdomen about 8mm in width. The legs are flatten plates with saw-toothed edge which are also look like leaf. It has relatively long wings, with the forewings cover half and hind wings cover all but one segment of its abdomen. If it is disturbed, it will display the blue blotches at the wings base to scare away the predators.
- Two weeks later, under the same tree, we found a dead body of this species of stick insect. The head and abdomen was broken apart and the abdomen was empty. It seemed that it was consumed by a bird. Notice that the blue blotches at the wings base, which was supposed to scare away the predators, obviously this did not always work.
The Host Plant
- Red Bloodwood
- Eucalyptus gummifera, Family Myrtaceae
- We checked that the tree we found the Children's Stick Insect was a Red Bloodwood Gum. There are about four to five fully grown Red Bloodwoods in Wishart Outlook Park.
