Stick insect help, Anisomorpha buprestoides.

[whoami?]

Just the other day, I found a male-female pair of walkingsticks on my front door. And I decided to keep them as pets. So, I've been reading that this particular species (Anisomorpha buprestoides) will eat oak. And there's plenty of oak around, so I snipped off a few twigs and gave it to them. But it's been 3 days and they've not eaten at all.

Is anyone the least bit famiiar with this species? I give them a daily light misting, I gave them food that they supposedly enjoy, and the temperature should be fine. So, like, what's the problem? Why aren't they eating?

 

[Wade]

They tend not to be huge eaters when mature, so you might not see much feeding activity when you've only got the pair. Also, although the species will eat a variety of leaves, individuals might be choosy if they've only eaten one thing up until then. You might try bramble or even a different variety of oak (yes, they can tell the difference).

The important thing is to provide a dish of moist soil or sand for the female to lay eggs in. They're an easy species to raise.

Wade

 

[galeogirl]

A friend of mine who raises stick insects has had good luck feeding rhododendron and ivy leaves to some of her sticks as well.

 

[whoami?]

They tend not to be huge eaters when mature, so you might not see much feeding activity when you've only got the pair. Also, although the species will eat a variety of leaves, individuals might be choosy if they've only eaten one thing up until then. You might try bramble or even a different variety of oak (yes, they can tell the difference).

The important thing is to provide a dish of moist soil or sand for the female to lay eggs in. They're an easy species to raise.

Wade

Thamks!

I had read that they eat bramble, but I didn't know what the hell bramble is. But I looked it up and saw that it's blackberry. I don't have blackberry anywhere nearby, but I do have LOTS of dewberry plants nearby, and figured they'd be similar enough.

Anyway, last night I found another walkingstick just a couple of feet from the pair I found on my front door. This third walkingstick was on an azalea bush outside my front door. I never read that they ate azalea, but I figured I'd give it a shot. took twigs from every large plant withing a 10 foot radius (I figured that since they can't fly, whatever they were eating must be very close to where I found them). I cut twigs of oak, azalea, dewberry, and some other bush that I don't know what it is. And the female started eating the dewberry leaves the second she found it. I also noticed her eating the azalea.

She's also dropping eggs all over the place.

At first I had them in a pickle jar with no soil, but then I moved them into a larger Critter Keeper cage with moist soil. During the couple of days that they were in the jar, they dropped lots of pebbles. I had assumed they were just feces, but then I saw a picture of eggs on some website. I noticed the similarity, so I took one of the pebbles and squeezed it just to be sure. And red goo squirted out, so it was at that point that I knew they were actually eggs.

So, another question: do the eggs have to be on moist soil in order to hatch? If I just keep the eggs in a jar, will that keep them from hatching?

Do I really NEED soil? The insect was dropping eggs in a glass jar with no substrate. And that makes it much easier to find the eggs if there is no soil in the cage. Will the eggs actually hatch in those conditions, or do they truly require being laid in moist soil in order to hatch?

 

[Wade]

I thought Anisomorpha usually bury their eggs, is the third stick a different species? Many species do just drop their eggs randomly. In most species, some humidity will be needed for the dropped eggs to hatch, but the eggs can be collected and set up in a hatching container, like a deli cup with some slightly moist soil or paper towels in the bottom.

You don't really need substrate at all for species that drop eggs, and for species that bury eggs you can just provide a small dish of sand or soil for them to bury eggs in. For Anisomorpha a 8-oz deli is big enough.

Wade

 

[whoami?]

I thought Anisomorpha usually bury their eggs, is the third stick a different species? Many species do just drop their eggs randomly. In most species, some humidity will be needed for the dropped eggs to hatch, but the eggs can be collected and set up in a hatching container, like a deli cup with some slightly moist soil or paper towels in the bottom.

You don't really need substrate at all for species that drop eggs, and for species that bury eggs you can just provide a small dish of sand or soil for them to bury eggs in. For Anisomorpha a 8-oz deli is big enough.

Wade

Yeah, I'd read the same thing. But it's an Anisomorpha buprestoides alright, and it was just dropping eggs on the bottom of the jar.

Perhaps they only bury their eggs if you give them something to bury them in. I guess if there's nothing for them to bury the eggs in, they HAVE to just drop them on the ground.

 

[Wade]

Probably so. The eggs of those species which bury them are likley more sensitive to dessication than those of droppers, so to hatch them successfully they probably need to be kept moist.

I've kept a different species of Anisomorpha and hatching them was simply a matter of keeping the sand a little moist.

Wade

 

[NiGHTS]

You can build a pretty good egg incubator out of a deli cup, or even a discarded plastic soft drink type bottle. It's just key to keep the eggs nice and moist. There's a quick step-by-step guide here: http://phasmidsincyberspace.com/Stick Insect Care Sheet.htm

As for substrate - you don't need any. If you line the cage with paper, you can just pull it out and dump the eggs into the incubator; nice and easy. Or, if you have a nice moist substrate, you can just them lay their eggs in that and let nature run its course (although I would always incubate some of the eggs, just in case).

And just FYI (since it took me so long to figure out) - "Bramble" is just a word used to refer to any type of thorny bush that usually produces berries, such as blackberry, raspberry, boysenberry, etc, etc.