Stick insects can be a good choice of pet for people looking at keeping insects as pets. Stick insects are fairly easy to look after, requiring low maintenance and are fairly inexpensive to buy.
Here are the 19 brilliant things you should know about stick insects.
1. What is a walking stick bug?
Stick insects are known by different many different names including stick bugs, walking stick bugs and even bug sticks. These names do not represent a difference in the species or even the type of insect, instead they are localized terms used to describe the same insect, the stick insect. So, in the US stick insects are more commonly known as stick bugs.
There are over 2,500 species of stick insect with the most commonly known being the Vietnamese stick insect, Indian stick insect (also known as the laboratory stick insect), Giant Prickly stick insect, Thorny stick insect to different varieties of leaf insect, including the Giant Leaf insect.
2. Are Walking Sticks and Leaf Sticks the same?
The leaf insect and the stick insect are from the same taxonomical order and classed as stick insects. The leaf insect, as it’s name implies looks more like a leaf, allowing it to camouflage itself against the leaves of trees and shrubs.
The common stick insects look more like twigs and are able to blend in with the branches on the trees, fooling predators into believing they are a twig and therefore not worth eating.
3. Are stick insects related to scorpions?
Some stick insect species can resemble scorpions especially when they are threatened and move themselves into a defensive posture, as the giant prickly stick insect can do. Whereby moving it’s tail upwards and curling it to make it look like a scorpion stinger can help it ward of predators. Even so, stick insects are not related to scorpions.
Their taxonomy is different with stick insects being classed as insects (Insecta) and scorpions being classed as arachnids (Arachnida). Putting scorpions into the same class as other arachnids like spiders, mites to ticks.
4. Are stick insects and praying mantis the same?
Even though stick insects and praying mantis’ live in the same regions and can be the same color, they are not the same species of insect. Stick insects are herbivores feeding on leaves and plants, whilst praying mantis’ are carnivorous and need to feed on other insects.
So, whilst both stick insects and praying mantises belong the taxonomical class Insecta, as they are insects, stick insects belong to a different order, the Phasmatodea whilst the praying mantis belongs to the order of Mantodea.
5. Do stick insects carry diseases?
Stick insects as kept as pet do not carry any diseases that could be harmful to humans or to other pets. They have an acute immune response to many diseases and types of illness, fighting these effectively. It’s safe to assume stick insects bred in captivity by expert breeders should be safe to keep as pets.
Stick insects in the wild can end up carrying diseases like salmonella, if they come into contact with leaves or water that contains the salmonella bacterium. As they move from branch to branch, the stick insects can spread the salmonella to other leaves and branches.
6. Do stick insects like being held?
Stick insects are fragile creatures and being held is not recommended. They can easily lose limbs when handles inappropriately and even when handled with extreme care, the stick insect will not be happy at being held.
7. Do stick insects need substrate?
Stick insects only need a substrate to make it easier to clean their cage, as any of their poop will end up on the substrate at the bottom of their tank or enclosure, and this can be easily removed. The substrate can be inexpensive paper toweling instead of more expensive brand name substrate.
8. Do stick insects like rain?
Stick insects like some humidity and rain can provide this in some of the more tropical climates they live in. When kept as pets, it’s essential to ensure they have the correct humidity and spraying water in their enclosure can help with this.
Good humidity is essential for the stick insects molting process, as without decent humidity, the stick insect will struggle to molt and shed it’s skin. This could be serious, as the stick insect could end up dying from being unable to molt properly.
In the wild, when it rains, the stick insect needs to remain anchored to the branches, to ensure it doesn’t fall off the tree and end up drowning in a pool of water.
9. Do stick insects smell?
Stick insects do not produce any distinctive smells and when kept as pets, they do not produce any unpleasant odors or smells. Even the poop they excrete does not have any overbearing smell and this can reduce the frequency of cleaning their housing.
10. Can stick insects get wet?
Keeping stick insects moist by spraying them with water doesn’t pose them any problems as long as they don’t fall into any deep pools of water like into their water container. As they may have problems being able to climb out and could end up drowning, especially if they are younger stick insects or nymphs.
11. Are stick insects edible?
In some areas of the world stick insects are seen as edible and are eaten, even though they are not considered a delicacy like some other insects. This is mainly because they taste quite bland, resulting in them not being a popular insect to eat.
They can be used in Chinese medicine, especially in Chinese medicinal teas. This is probably why they are popular in some parts of East Asia and in territories that make up Papua New Guinea.
In the wild, stick insects main predators are birds and stick insects have evolved to become nocturnal, so they can come out at night to feed, when there are less birds around. As stick insects provide limited nutritional value, they are not popular feeder insects for pet reptiles either.
12. Do stick insects use mimicry?
Stick insects are experts at mimicking the twigs and small branches they tend to live on, with the leaf insect species using the leaves of trees and branches as cover. Using their camouflage ability to hide themselves from predators, as stick insects tend to look like twigs, so they mimic the swaying of other twigs on the branches, to make themselves look more like them.
Whilst leaf insects have evolved to look like leaves and blend in with the foliage on leaves and shrubs, to keep out of site of predators.
13. Where do walking sticks live?
Generally tropical climates are suited to stick insects also known as walking sticks, with forests and woodland making ideal habits for these insects. Trees provide the ideal cover against predators for stick insects as stick insects tend to look like twigs such as the Vietnamese stick insect and the giant prickly stick insect. It’s easy for these walking stick species to camouflage themselves against a tree because they can look like innocuous branch twigs.
Leaf insect species tend to look like leaves so tropical climates are suitable for these types of stick insect, where they can blend in with the tree leaves.
14. Do stick insects live in England?
There are stick insect colonies living in England especially in the South West counties of Cornwall and Devon as well as the Isles of Scilly off the south west coast. These are not native species and have arrived from New Zealand primarily, with the unarmed stick insect, prickly stick and the smooth stick insect species.
As these species are from New Zealand, they possibly arrived concealed with plants transported from New Zealand.
15. Are stick insects invasive?
Depending on the species of stick insect, some species can be invasive especially if they overfeed by defoliating leaves and branches from trees, resulting in the trees dying. This can lead to some US states making it illegal to keep some species of stick insect or requiring a permit to do so.
16. Can stick insects climb grass?
Stick insects are capable of climbing grass however, they live in trees and shrubs where they have a greater prospect of using camouflage to blend into with the surrounding twigs to keep safe from predators.
With leaf insect species blending in with tree leaves to make themselves inconspicuous to predators primarily birds.
17. Are walking sticks poisonous to horses?
Stick insects also known as walking sticks are not poisonous to other animals like horses, as the majority of stick insects produce no venom. Therefore horses are not under any threat from the majority of stick insect species.
The exception being the southern two-striped species, which can spray a milky venom, which is quite noxious and smelly. Leading to severe irritation plus temporary blindness if the venom sprayed gets into the horses eyes.
Some larger species of walking stick have spines on their legs which could in theory rub against an animals legs and cause a reaction but large animals like horses.
Some people confuse the devil’s walking stick as a bug and believe it causes dermatitis when animals like horses are in contact with it. However, the devil’s walking stick is not an insect or a bug, it’s plant (Aralia spinosa). If horses eat this plant, because it’s mildly toxic, they may experience a reaction to this.
18. Can stick insects live with snails?
The majority of stick insect species cannot be kept with snails in the same enclosures as they need different environments to live in. With snails requiring high humidity which most stick insect species will find difficult to tolerate, leading to premature death.
If both are being kept as pets then it’s highly advisable to have separate enclosures for each one, with their own temperature and climate controls. These controls should be set to the ideal environment conditions for each respective creature, with high humidity for the snail enclosure and average humidity for the stick insect enclosure.
19. Are stick insects poisonous to dogs?
Most stick insects are not poisonous to dogs, so if they mistakenly eat a stick insect, there should be nothing to worry about. It’s important to keep pet stick insects away from dogs as they may eat them.
Most species of stick insect do not produce any venom, so any dogs getting near stick insects won’t end up being sprayed by noxious substances. However, depending on the species, some stick insects can produce venom and spray this towards anything they see as a threat, like a dog.
The southern two-striped species can spray a milky liquid, that’s not only smelly but is quite noxious. Causing severe irritation and even temporary blindness if sprayed into a dog or other animals eyes.
