Bi-generational Adult Indian Walking Sticks

Our first F1 generation Indian Walking Sticks (Carausius morosus) ecdysed into an adult (seventh instar). It's seven month old mother is still alive, meaning we now have two bi-generational adults. 

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Over the past few weeks, many of our Indian Walking Sticks began entering the sixth instar and it wouldn't be long until we had our first adult (seventh instar). We checked on the  sticks everyday this week to see when it would happen, and today we found a freshly ecdysed adult. Its cuticle is smooth and bright green, with red on the fore femora (second segment of leg). Its body is long and slender, at approximately 3.2 inches, with long legs and a large, cup like ovipositar. The abdomen is very thin as it hasn't fed in days and hasn't began producing eggs yet. It spent 17 days in sixth instar from 9/27-10/14.

​Since it's seven month old mother is still alive (and still doing quite well), this means we now have two bi-generational adults which is extremely rare among insects due to their short lifespans (most don't even live until their eggs hatch, let alone until their children reach adulthood). The age difference is quite apparent between the two as seen in the photos. The mother's green has darkened and dulled overtime and her egg-bound abdomen is much thicker. Also the tibia are very worn from crawling and are brown in color. The daughter is also larger than the mother who is about 3 inches, perhaps due to feeding it bramble its entire life which seems to be the best host. We're not sure how much longer the mother will live, but her health seems to be declining, though perhaps from the recent overcrowding in the tub rather than from aging. The egg count was very low this time, and many of the eggs were quite small.  Also, her eggs have recently stopped hatching (the ones labeled as new in the previous posts) so we suspect that they are diapausing.

We also took the time to change out the raspberry cuttings and do a rough count up our stock. Soon we will have a lot of adults as there are a lot of sixth, fifth, and fourth instars now. 
Count: L7: 1 (F1), 1 (F0); L6: 20; L5: 18; L4: 23; L3: 8; L2: 23; L1: 46; hatched eggs: 171 (96 new, 75 old); total eggs (last counted 10/14): 580 (459 new, 121 old); avg 2.58 eggs/day from 10/2-10/14; dead/missing: 31.

- Alan