Stick Insect Hatches

by Marianne
(Sydney, NSW)

Stick Insect hatching

Just to let you know a few updates with our stick insects.

There have been some deaths along the way, but we have recently had a few Childrens Stick Insects hatch. They hatched on the 12th of August, 2008.

Interestingly, they have still been attached to their eggs and have struggled to get their back legs free. I'm not sure if the last two which hatched will survive.

In the photo above, you can see that three legs of this tiny Childrens Stick Insect are still inside the egg. It is on a Gum leaf.

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Stick Insect Hatches

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Apr 26, 2010
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Hatching Eggs
by: Bill Donaldson

I find the best way to hatch stick insect eggs is to put them in a plastic box and wait.
Good information about stick insects is available at www.small-life.co.uk

Apr 17, 2010
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How we have hatched stick insect eggs
by: Joel

Hi,
In order for the stick insect eggs to hatch, we have found that you need to put the eggs in a little container of dirt and dry leaves because that is where their eggs usually land. You need to make it like their natural habitat which is also humid. We spray the insect cage with a light mist which keeps it humid.

When we had some other stick insect eggs we put them into a plastic container without any dirt or leaves and we found that when they hatched they were too weak to even come out of their egg or survive for very long.

Also, it might take an egg a long time to hatch - anywhere from 3 months to 3 years!
So, be patient.

When they hatch, all you need to do is to have fresh gum leaves or bottlebrush leaves available for them to eat and spray a gentle mist over them daily.

We now have second generation of our Goliath stick insects - two fully grown female Goliaths and one male all coming from eggs which the previous generation laid and we placed in the dirt.

Apr 11, 2010
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STICK INSECT ADVICE
by: Garth Palisade

For great advice on stick insects go to the "Ask Professor Phasmid" page of the British website www.small-life.co.uk You can even email in your questions about stick insects and have them answered by Professor Phasmid.

Feb 05, 2010
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need help
by: Anonymous

hello my son is getting some stick insects eggs for his birthday and I need to know how to hatch them? Can you help me please. All I know is there a mix pack of eggs that he is getting off the net as his nanna and grandad are getting him but we don't really know how to hatch them or how long it will take plese help thanks x

Jan 05, 2009
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Thanks
by: BrumbyBen

Thanks Ben next time I will do that. But this time all the insects died. We also talked to the people at the Australian muesum and they gave us some ideas.
We have had about 15 insects in three years. We have had over 100 nymphs of the childrens stick insect.
But we still have more than 1,000 eggs of other types of stick insects.

P.S. I am Ben Also
P.SS. I am 14

Jan 03, 2009
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avoiding death of stick insects
by: Ben

Avoiding death in the phasmid world as a nymph can be tricky without something to latch on to to pull them selves free from their egg. What the mothers do to help the nymph (baby) is to flick the egg from the tip of her abdomen to fall to the ground where it will roll into a crevice where it will wait the seasons to hatch. My experiences with stick insects over 2 years how they reproduce, how they grow, how they behave, and how they produce eggs and much more.

I had a female Children's stick insect that laid over 200 eggs and it was a struggle to keep track of birth and to keep them alive during hatching so i tried a more natural way to hatch the eggs, so i put the container lid off in the big cage with my other phasmids and and I let the other stick insects to poo and drop eggs to make the eggs feel like in the wild and it worked!

for more info on my work visit wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phasmatodea_life_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_(phasmatodea)

and my user a:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phasmidsmantids

just copy and paste to your web browser.

PS. i am only 13!