Ten Fascinating Stick Insect Facts!

July 24, 2009 - PRLog -- The fascination and delights of keeping and studying mini-beasts have long been known to children and a few lucky scientific boffins. Bugsafari, a specialist supplier of Indian stick insect eggs, aims to make bug keeping easy and fun for everyone. Stick insects aren't as boring as they might seem!  

Bugsafari's Fascinating Phasmid Facts:

1) Ghost Story
Stick Insects are all members of a group of insects known as the "Phasmids". 'Phasma' is a Latin word meaning ghost!

2) Clever camouflage
Some stick insects have something in common with chameleons; they can change their colour to suit their surroundings.

3) Outnumbered
Only about one in one thousand Indian Stick Insects is male! Indian Stick Insects are parthenogenetic. That means the females don't need to mate to be able to lay fertile eggs that will hatch.

4) Rock on
Many Indian Stick Insects rock from side to side. Although they look like they are dancing they are really just trying to look more like branches swaying in the breeze.

5) Wild West
In some warm western areas of the British Isles (the Scilly Isles, Devon, Cornwall and parts of Ireland) stick insect can now be found living in the wild.
DO NOT RELEASE YOURS OUTSIDE: IT IS AGAINST THE LAW AND THEY WILL PROBABLY DIE.

6) Dead Good
Sometimes when disturbed stick insects will 'play dead' for a few minutes. A good way of tricking predators.

7) 2500 and counting
More than 2500 species of stick insects are known to science but there are plenty more still waiting to be described for the first time.

8) Well established
Indian Stick Insects were first brought to Europe by a French scientist in 1901.

9) Super sticky
Stick Insects have suckers and claws on their feet, allowing them to walk up vertical walls and even upside down.  


10) Scary scorpion stance
Baby stick insects, known as nymphs, sometimes curl their tails over their backs to fool predators into thinking they are small scorpions. But don't be fooled yourself; they are harmless.


So there you go - stick insects aren't in the slightest bit dull. If you want to find out more then visit the Bugsafari website at http://bugsafari.co.uk where you'll find all sorts of interesting stick insect facts and information. If you're really interested have a look at the Bugsafari online shop at http://bugsafari.co.uk/onlineshop.htm where you'll find stick insect eggs, stick insect nymphs and stick insect kits.

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Bugsafari (http://bugsafari.co.uk) started as a specialist supplier of Indian stick insect eggs and has grown to become probably the largest provider of these insect eggs in the world. We now offer much, much more with a wide range of education science kits for kids!