Gray's leaf insect
Gray's leaf insect looks just like a leaf with legs. Its body is flat, wide and green, and even its legs are shaped like little leaves. It moves very slowly, so birds and lizards walk right past it.
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Fun facts
Its babies are about 2 centimetres long and dark red, not green at all. When touched, they freeze and play dead.
The males can fly, but the heavy females cannot.
A female lays about 500 eggs in her life.
Females live 4 to 7 months, but males live only 3 weeks to 1 month.
It sheds its skin 5 or 6 times while it grows.
Most asked questions about Gray's leaf insect
?What does Gray's leaf insect eat?
Leaves, mainly from mango, guava and rambutan trees.
?How big is Gray's leaf insect?
Males are 5 to 7 centimetres long and females 7 to 9 centimetres.
?Can leaf insects fly?
The males can fly with their back wings. The females are too heavy and cannot fly.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pulchriphyllium bioculatum
- Named by
- Gray, 1832
- Group
- Stick and leaf insects
- Family
- Phylliidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Phasmatodea > Phylliidae
- Lives on
- Asia
Where the facts come from
- Pulchriphyllium bioculatum (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 No machine-readable author provided. Else assumed (based on copyright claims).. Public domain, 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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