Giant spiny stick insect
The giant spiny stick insect is a big, chunky stick insect covered in spines. It is brown or black and looks like a piece of bark or rotten wood. It has no wings, and it comes out at night to eat leaves.
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Fun facts
The male has a big curved thorn on his back legs. In New Guinea, people have used it as a fish hook.
During the day, many of them hide together under bark and in hollow trees.
If there are no males around, a female can still lay eggs that hatch.
Its eggs look like plant seeds with a hard shell and take 4.5 to 6.5 months to hatch.
The females are much bigger than the males, often about 14 centimetres long.
Most asked questions about Giant spiny stick insect
?Is the giant spiny stick insect dangerous?
It is not venomous, but its sharp spines can poke, so it is best just to look.
?What does the giant spiny stick insect eat?
Leaves of forest plants like eucalyptus, figs, brambles and guava.
?How big is the giant spiny stick insect?
Females are usually about 14 centimetres long, and males are smaller, up to about 10 centimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Eurycantha calcarata
- Group
- Stick and leaf insects
- Family
- Lonchodidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Phasmida > Lonchodidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Thorny devil stick insect
Where the facts come from
- Eurycantha calcarata (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Greg Hume. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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