What Types of Foods Do Walking Stick Bugs Eat?

They walk slowly among the leaves in spastic, jerking motions, or sway as if blown by the wind. It can be difficult to tell they're alive. If you've seen such a creature, you've probably come across a walking stick insect. Their unique camouflage makes them nearly impossible to spot in the plants where they thrive. But that clever disguise also makes them fascinating bugs.

Taxonomy And Anatomy

The Phasamatodea (or phasmid) order of insects gets its name from the Greek word phasma, meaning phantom or apparition. This name is fitting because the bodies of walking stick insects are designed to blend seamlessly with their environment. They are elongated; some have cylindrical bodies like sticks and others have flat bodies like leaves. Most are large and slow moving. All of them eat vegetation.

Common Misclassification

The praying mantis is often mistaken for a phasmid because it moves in slow, halting movements and because it employs similar, leaf-like camouflage. But the mantis is not a phasmid. It is predatory and not herbivorous like the phasmids.

Walking Sticks As Pets

Walking sticks are docile and mild mannered insects that are often kept as pets. The Indian stick insect is the most common phasmid kept in captivity. It requires a tall vivarium and feeds mainly on bramble (blackberry or loganberry), ivy, privet, rose and even lettuce. Walking sticks can reproduce by parthenogenesis, which means no male is necessary for fertilization. So if you keep them in captivity, be ready for babies.

Walking Sticks as Agricultural Pests

A hazard in keeping walking sticks as pets, particularly non-native varieties, is that when released into the wild they can become agricultural pests. Because they reproduce so easily, a non-native species can decimate local vegetation. Imports into the United States are strictly regulated to keep the risk of infestation to a minimum.

Endangered Phasmids

While it isn't what it eats that's the problem, the Lord Howe Island stick insect has been reduced to a population of around thirty individuals because they are being eaten. Just off the coast of Australia on Ball's Pyramid, part of the Lord Howe Island chain, the last of these tenacious insects have been living on one melaleuca bush for decades. In 1918, black rats were introduced to the island and began feasting on the large insects, decimating the population. Efforts are being made to breed the Lord Howe Island stick insect in captivity and to reduce the rat population to save this phasmid from extinction.