The Vietnamese Stick Insect (Ramulus artemis) is a phasmid insect.

The Vietnamese Stick Insect is green or brown and long and thin, looking like a twig. It is well-camouflaged. It has yellow compound eyes. It is wingless. The female has a thorn on the underside of her belly.

 

It measures about 21 centimetres (8 inches) long.

The Stick Insect is found all over the world, except in Antarctica. The Vietnamese Stick Insect is found in south-east Asia, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. It prefers topical or sub-tropical forests.

It is mainly nocturnal, active at night.

Like the praying mantis, the Vietnamese Stick Insect walks in a slow-motion stop-and-start action, which makes it move like a twig in the breeze.

The Vietnamese Stick Insect is herbivorous, eating leaves.

It breeds parthenogenically, meaning that it lays eggs that hatch without being fertilized. The female lays 100-1,200 eggs on the ground or on a plant. The eggs hatch after about 30 days into nymphs, which are all female. The nymphs eat plants and grow into an adult stick insect.

 

 

Photographer: Martina Nicolls

Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM