Stick Insects - Family Phylliidae
There are two families of Stick Insects, Phylliidae and Phasmatidae, in Australia. Most stick insects we found are in family Phasmatidae, only one in Phylliidae.
Thin Grass Stick Insect - Sipyloidea or Parasipyloidea sp.
Family Phylliidae
This page contains pictures and information about the Thin Grass Stick Insects that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 70mm
- This is a very thin stick insect, pale brown-yellow in colour with dark brown thin lines along its body, resemble dry grass. We found in stick insect in bushland of Alexandra Hill and Karawatha Forest during mid summer. The stick insect insect was hard to be seen. We saw it only because it was flying pass and landed in front of us among the long thin grasses. Even thought we spent minutes to locate it.
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- It has antenna as the same length as it body length. Its hind wings were clean in colour.
- We believed it was a male and it was searching for female. It flied away a few times when we tried to take some pictures. It often flied to about ten meters away, then we had to spend another few minutes to locate it.
- These stick insects are hardly be seen when they are hiding among thin grasses. We found this species a few times, every time we saw them was because the insects want to fly away when we walked across the grasses. For some reasons, the stick insect in the above photos loss its front and middle left legs.
- Another Thin Grass Stick Insect found in Karawatha Forest in mid summer.
- Reference:
- 1. Insects of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pp 400.
- Australia 2005.
- 1. Insects of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pp 400.
