The common walkingstick or northern walkingstick (''Diapheromera femorata'') is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of phasmid or stick insect found across

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. The average length of this species is 75mm (3 in) for males and 95mm (3.7 in) for females. The insect is found in

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

forest throughout

, where it eats many types of plant foliage. Even though the common walkingstick is a generalist it does tend to prefer foliage from

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

and

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus '' Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according to ...

trees. Localised clusters of these insects sometimes occur; however, the insects have no wings, and dispersal from tree to tree is limited.

Description

The common walkingstick is a slender, elongated insect that

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...

s itself by resembling a twig. The sexes differ, with the male usually being brown and about in length while the female is greenish-brown, and rather larger at . There are three pairs of legs, but at rest, the front pair is extended forward beside the antennae, forming an extension of the twig-like effect. Neither sex has wings, the antennae are two thirds of the length of the body, and each of the cerci (paired appendages at the tip of the abdomen) has a single segment.

Distribution

The walkingstick is native to North America. Its range extends from the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, as far west as California and northwards to North Dakota. It also occurs in Canada (where it is the only stick insect) being present in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Québec.

Ecology

''D. femorata'' is

herbivorous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat n ...

, feeding mainly on the leaves of trees. They are leaf skeletonisers, eating the tissues between the leaf veins, pausing for a while and then walking on to new leaves. They can feed at any time of day but the greatest feeding activity has been noted between 9pm and 3am. Early-stage

nymphs A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, land ...

are often found on American hazel (''Corylus americana'') and

black cherry ''Prunus serotina'', commonly called black cherry,World Economic Plants: A Standard Reference, Second Edition'. CRC Press; 19 April 2016. . p. 833–. wild black cherry, rum cherry, or mountain black cherry, is a deciduous tree or shrub in the r ...

(''Prunus serotina''), but where these are scarce, they are likely to be on

white oak ''Quercus'' subgenus ''Quercus'' is one of the two subgenera into which the genus ''Quercus'' was divided in a 2017 classification (the other being subgenus ''Cerris''). It contains about 190 species divided among five sections. It may be calle ...

(''Quercus alba''). Older individuals may choose black oak (''Quercus velutina''). Another food tree is the

black locust ''Robinia pseudoacacia'', commonly known as black locust, is a medium-sized hardwood deciduous tree, belonging to the tribe Robinieae of the legume family Fabaceae. It is native to a few small areas of the United States, but it has been widely pl ...

(''Robinia pseudoacacia''). Adults are present in August and September in the northern part of the range, but because of their tendency to feed high in the canopy, the insects are seldom seen. The stick insect life cycle is

hemimetabolous Hemimetabolism or hemimetaboly, also called partial metamorphosis and paurometabolism,McGavin, George C. ''Essential Entomology: An Order-by-Order Introduction''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. pp. 20. is the mode of development of certain ...

, proceeding through a series of nymphal stages. Breeding takes place in late summer after the nymph has moulted for the last time and become an adult. Egg-laying takes place about a week after mating and the eggs, measuring across, are dropped singly to the

forest floor The forest floor, also called detritus or wikt:duff#Noun 2, duff, is the part of a forest ecosystem that mediates between the living, aboveground portion of the forest and the mineral soil, principally composed of dead and decaying plant matter ...

. Here they overwinter in the

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall, or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that has fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituen ...

, hatching the following May or even a year later. If conditions are dry, the newly hatched young may fail to extricate themselves from their egg-capsules. Ones that succeed in doing so climb up the trunks of trees, start to feed on the foliage, and pass through four to six moults as they grow.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q5153638 Phasmatodea Insects of North America Insects described in 1824