AUTUMN WILDLIFE AND SCENERY FROM NOVEMBER 2007

[Anthony Darby]

Jings Lesley. Wild stick insects. The eggs off that beastie would sell for a fiver a dozen on the Entomolgical Livestock Group forum! I have leaf insects from the Philippines at the moment, but the male is mature and will have probably 'popped his clogs' before the first female is adult.

[Maggi Young]

Glad to see in some of Cliff's pix that there are actually people out there enjoying those stunning woodlands, though, perversely, the "empty" shots ( no offence meant, Pixies) are more beautiful!!

[ranunculus]

Oh yes Maggi....I totally agree!  It would have been even quieter if the darn photographer and his wife had stayed away.

[Lesley Cox]

Beech forest is surely the most beautiful of all kinds. I frequently take a detour on my way from town to home, in order to drive through the beeches on Three Mile Hill. If I had a few spare acres I would plant one. For now I'll make do with my one copper beech (pink at the moment) and two greeny pink seedlings grown from some beech leaf compost Roger brought home a couple of years ago.

Anthony, what would you suggest I do to relieve Sticky of her eggs? Massage her tummy? Build a little egg cup sized nest and place her in it, hoping for the best? Actually, if she lays anything anywhere here I'll be delighted to have more of her kind. In another garden I had a hedge of Olearia but I could never bring myself to cut it as there were hundreds of stick insects, smaller and paler than Sticky, and I didn't want to cut them as well. So, a shaggy hedge.

Apparently we have 9 native genera and about 22 species but maybe more as the boffins are dividing and sub-dividing, and there are some as yet undescribed anyway.

[Anthony Darby]

Two NZ species have been introduced and naturalised in southern England. They usually lay two or three eggs a day. Most just drop them, but one species from Oz 'pings' them using a scoop-like ovipositor like one of those things in that strange (Spanish?) ball game.

[ranunculus]

Pelota good that is Anthony!   

I used to know a bloke with a scoop-like ovipositor....had it treated in Germany, I believe.  They wouldn't touch it on the National Health!

[Maggi Young]

Apparently we have 9 native genera and about 22 species but maybe more as the boffins are dividing and sub-dividing, and there are some as yet undescribed anyway.

EEEEEEKKK!!!!

[ranunculus]

Didn't think the pun was THAT bad Maggi?

[Maggi Young]

Cliff, I thought the sight of the buttercups from Andalucia in the Flowers and foliage thread might have diverted your punning mechanism for an hour or two... vain hope it seems!
As ever, thanks for the giggle, supplied with your usual generosity 

[Anthony Darby]

In some forests at certain times of the year, falling stick insect eggs can sound like rain! Once I get my new study...............

[Lesley Cox]

I was going to ask what the eggs looked like, in little patches like moth eggs or singly on leaves or what? but from the sound of that above, they're just dropped and abandoned anywhere? (She's still in the tunnel though moved along from the Disporum.) I'll keep an eye out but don't really know what I'm looking for. I've sent a pic and email to a gentleman in NZ's Landcare Research who works with stick insects and who should be able to idendify my Sticky.

Maggi, they're not at all EEEEKKKKy. In fact, quite benign and friendly when standing on one's hand. They don't DO anything much except sit there, in the day time at least.

[Maggi Young]

Lesley, something ( okay, since you like them... someone) with that many legs is by my definition eeky!
Two legs okay, four legs better, anymore... eeky... simple as that

[Lesley Cox]

Well yes, I like them a lot. Very cute and interesting and I hope to have a lot more around. I've seen the occasional one here and there in this garden, perhaps one or two in a year but I'd like lots.

[Anthony Darby]

Stick insect eggs are very like seeds, often with a little operculum on one end. They are usually quite large - e.g. McLeay's Spectre (Extatosoma tiaratum) from Queensland has eggs nearly 3mm diam. The males of this species are one of the few which can fly up from the ground. A friend had a big female which laid over 1000 eggs.

[Lesley Cox]

Scary!!!

So if I find any, what do I do with them? Not sow them in a pot, covered with grit I suppose?