Amazing Creatures: Giant Prickly Stick Insect
The Giant Prickly Stick Insect, also refferred to as Macleay’s Spectre Stick Insect, is a large stick insect from Australia and New Guinea. Its scientific Latin name is Extatosoma tiaratum.
This is a very popular species of stick insect, because of the large size and amazing camouflage.
This species of stick insect looks more like a cactus than like a twig. Its body is bulky and covered in small spines. On its legs it has big lobes that are also spiked and look like leaves of a desert plant. Extatosoma tiaratum are often light to mid brown, but occasionally you can find green, beige or dark brown varieties.
There is also a rare “lichen” type color that can be found in some young Giant Prickly Stick Insect females. Their color depends on the conditions in which they are kept, but it is not entirely sure which conditions you need to provide to induce your stick insects to change color. You can read more about getting the lichen color morph at: How to get the lichen color morph of the Giant Prickly Stick Insect.
The difference between (adult) males and females is enormous. The females are bulky, thick and 15 cm long. They have lots of spines on their back and large lobes on their legs. The males are really slender, have little spines and reach a length of 12 to 13 cm. The adult males have long wings and are able to fly, while the females have small wings (about 1 inch long).
