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Post by Wood~Ant on Dec 12, 2010 8:28:03 GMT
For the past 3 months I have been picking up eggs from my 2 female bark stick insects, which I have forgotten the correct name for, but here is one of them. I have one male and 2 females which are adult; but over the past week the eggs have started to hatch, so that I now have over 20 little dark brown baby sticks Hopefully the other 70+ eggs will hatch and Jen and I will have plenty more of this lovely species growing into adults over the coming months. A breeding pair cost about £10, so to see these babies coming into the world was a big thrill for us
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Post by Wood~Ant on Dec 12, 2010 15:19:28 GMT
Baby stick insects are no exception when it comes to looking cute, as these little miniatures of their parents show ;D First pic shows the eggs that these babies hatch out from. Later some of the kids will look like the female in the previous post photo.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Dec 13, 2010 17:16:50 GMT
Jen gave the baby sticks some freshly cut brambles leaves today, and yet more eggs have hatched, as they seem to hatch out during the night and early morning.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Dec 22, 2010 9:53:18 GMT
Jen and I have lost count of how many baby stick insects we've collected, but they keep hatching at the rate of 2 or 3 a day now
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jan 4, 2011 21:43:56 GMT
Male stick insects are very rare in some species and thus the ones you find in them will most likely be females. A female stick insect reproduces asexually, which is to say that her young are exact copies of her, right down to the genes- effectively clones. I think you mentioned buying breeding pairs though, so I guess males are common in other species. Some stick insects share a symbiotic relationship with ants, as the little 'cap' on top of the egg tastes nice to the ants. The female stick insect typically lets her eggs drop to the floor as she lays them, and ants find them. They mistake these eggs to be seeds, and the smell produced by them encourages the workers to take them down below. Some eggs do get eaten, but the ants will keep most of the eggs in storage. Eventually the baby stick insects hatch, and the ants allow them to leave the nest. They positively scamper up plants, until they find a suitable place to live and become lazy adults. Got that information from David Attenborough's documentary Life in the Undergrowth where he shows the stick insects growing up among the ants and leaving. If you haven't watched it already, then you should.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Feb 3, 2011 9:57:12 GMT
We are getting so many baby stick insects of this species ( which look like the bark of a tree) that Jen and I may have to sell some of the surplus off cheap before long, as we already have about 100 with perhaps another 100 waiting to hatch out still Once they get big enough, as many have already shed their skins in a second moult, we will have some nice sized bark stick insects. They feed mainly on bramble or oak leaves, but will eat rose leaves and flowers as well as fire thorn bush and a few other plants. If anyone is interested in owning some of these fascinating stick insects please PM me or Jenant and we can give you a fair deal I would think we can sell them for 75p each with £1 for P&P.
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Post by Jenny on Feb 13, 2011 7:00:06 GMT
I have had to move my bark sticks into a 2ft glass tank, they are doing so well with the egg hatching (too well, last count was about 90 ) I've got babies everywhere, it gets a bit chaotic in this household at times ;D I have found baby stick escapees on my wooden roller blinds, sitting there looking at me as if to say "I'm enjoying myself being free range, I am not going back in that tank!" What with the Messors escaping around my kitchen too! They are after my cake tins I reckon
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Post by Wood~Ant on Feb 26, 2011 11:08:15 GMT
Some of these baby stick insects have moulted 3 or 4 times now and are looking more like the adults. Here are just a few of them, as we now have about 100 and the population is growing fast as each day passes, as 3 or 4 hatch out from the hard eggs on a daily basis ;D
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Post by Wood~Ant on Mar 2, 2011 8:06:51 GMT
Our ants have taken a back seat at present, as we now have so many stick insect babies hatching out that it turning out to be a major job feeding them, getting them transferred from the baby tank into larger homes; and as I type this post Jen is saying to me that she doesn't know what to do with all of the dozens of stick insects which are fast becoming adult size, as then they will lay more eggs. We already have well over 70 bark stick insects, and a smaller number of Vietnamese Prickly ones too, so we have almost filled our large glass fish tank with stick insects Anyone who can offer a good home for some is more than welcome to contact Jenant or myself, as we have a stick insect invasion
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 16, 2011 19:41:42 GMT
You could offer to sell some of them to your local pet shop? I would normally consider buying a few, but my house is also overrun with pets at the moment.
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Post by odesssus on Mar 16, 2011 21:30:05 GMT
recycle them feed them to your ants.
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Phasmid
Nurse Ant
Posts: 92
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Post by Phasmid on Mar 16, 2011 22:13:19 GMT
recycle them feed them to your ants. My ants will eat any of the stick-insect species I've had or have, so thats where most of my surplus sticks go.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Mar 17, 2011 7:53:05 GMT
You could offer to sell some of them to your local pet shop? I would if we had a local pet shop, but it closed down ages ago. The only thing we have here now is a big Pets at Home store and it out on the A27 ring road miles form where we live in Chichester. What I can't sell off cheap or virtually give away to good friends may end up as ant food, I haven't decided what to do with the excess yet, as they were sold at £10 a pair when I bought them.
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shane
Ant Photographer
Ant Species Image Gatherer
Posts: 1,738
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Post by shane on Mar 17, 2011 12:13:47 GMT
My nephew wanted some of them last summer and still has box he made for them, don't know if I should get him some.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Mar 17, 2011 16:56:25 GMT
My nephew wanted some of them last summer and still has box he made for them, don't know if I should get him some. Send me a PM if he still wants some, as I will be selling them much, much cheaper than £10 for a pair. He could probably buy 7 or 8 for that price including the P&P from me.
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