Today, we were pleased to see that our Indian Walking Stick (Carausius morosus) eggs collected from our only adult had begun hatching today after about 6 weeks after they were laid. For the past few weeks, we have been checking our Indian Walking Sticks eggs everyday for hatchlings. These eggs were from the brown morph adult we found back in April who is now gone and the green morph adult we reared from first instar found in March who is still currently laying eggs. We had collected the eggs from the two females in two separate plastic cups so we could better estimate when they would begin hatching since the brown morph adult laid eggs much earlier and than the green morph one that started laying just around when the brown one went missing. Thus, we were expecting the brown morph walking stick's eggs to hatch first, but were extremely surprised to see two hatchlings from the green morph's batch of eggs when we checked today! The mother of the eggs began laying around the start of June, so it's been about 6 weeks since these hatchlings' eggs were laid, which sounds just about the right amount of time. However, eggs from the brown morph adult were laid as early as April and are thus over three months old. They can't possibly be alive unless they're diapausing which is extremely unlikely; how they died, we have no idea since we subjected them to the same conditions we always have for 4 years already and we have never had eggs die before. Anyways, we still have over 100 eggs and counting for our hatching batch. Shown below are a few pictures of one of the newborns as well as one of their still alive and healthy mother. The hatchlings squeeze out of their shell from the knob shaped "lid" or capitulum. The newborns look more or less the same as older nymphs and adults except that their abdomen is curled up and there are no secondary sex characteristics (though we know they are all female since this is a parthenogenically reproducing species). All newborns are this shade of brown but may change shade or turn green as they molt. Very frustratingly, however, the newborn photographed here went missing somehow (sigh, we know this is sort of embarrassing and careless on our part), so we have only one now, though it's not a big deal since there will be more than enough to rear as more hatch (the eggs will keep hatching and be laid so long as our adult is still alive!). For the rearing method, we basically copied the set-up for our adult but with a much smaller container. It's just a small plastic tub positioned vertically with a branch placed in a water vase, shown below. We find brambles (Rubus) and roses (Rosa) to be the best and most convenient hosts for this species, so we stuck in a raspberry cutting which should stay fresh for at least two weeks. The little newborn already started nibbling on the leaf when we put it in. As more walking sticks hatch, we will just keep putting them in here, but if it gets too overcrowded we'll just get a bigger tub. Anyway, let's start a count so we can keep track of our stock. Count: L7: 1 (F0); L1: 1; eggs: 128 (2 hatched) - Alan
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Timeline 2012–2017
Albany, California This timeline is a series of daily posts recording our observations on and experiences with various insects in Albany California and surrounding areas, from 2012-2017. Since we did not publish this site until 2016, posts before that were constructed retroactively. Starting in August 2017, we moved to Ithaca, New York; posts from there on can be viewed at Timeline 2017-present: Ithaca, New York. Archives (1,011)
August 2017 (49) July 2017 (121) June 2017 (79) May 2017 (77) April 2017 (91) March 2017 (35) February 2017 (12) January 2017 (10) December 2016 (12) November 2016 (26) October 2016 (49) September 2016 (84) August 2016 (94) July 2016 (99) June 2016 (53) May 2016 (21) April 2016 (4) January 2016 (1) August 2015 (3) July 2015 (3) June 2015 (2) June 2014 (3) May 2014 (1) April 2014 (3) March 2014 (3) December 2013 (2) November 2013 (2) October 2013 (5) September 2013 (11) August 2013 (15) July 2013 (9) June 2013 (5) May 2013 (4) April 2013 (3) March 2013 (2) February 2013 (3) January 2013 (2) December 2012 (2) November 2012 (1) October 2012 (2) September 2012 (2) August 2012 (5) July 2012 (1) June 2012 (1) Authors
![]() ![]() Full Species List (Alphabetical by scientific name) Note: - Not every species we encounter is necessarily presented on this site, rather a selection of those that were of particular interest to us and that we felt were worth documenting. - We can't guarantee that all species have been identified accurately, particularly taxa we are not as familiar with. Lepidoptera Actias luna Adelpha californica Agraulis vanillae Allancastria cerisyi Antheraea mylitta Antheraea polyphemus Anthocharis sara Argema mimosae Attacus atlas Battus philenor hirsuta Bombyx mori Caligo atreus Callosamia promethea Coenonympha tullia california Citheronia regalis Cricula trifenestrata Danaus plexippus Eacles imperialis Erynnis tristis Estigmene acrea Eumorpha achemon Eupackardia calleta Furcula cinereoides Heliconius erato Heliconius hecale Heliconius sapho Heliconius sara Hyalophora cecropia Hyalophora columbia Hyalophora euryalus Hylephila phyleus Hyles lineata Junonia coenia Langia zenzeroides formosana Lophocampa maculata Manduca sexta Morpho peleides Nymphalis antiopa Orgyia vetusta Orthosia hibisci quenquefasciata Pachysphinx modesta Papilio cresphontes Papilio eurymedon Papilio glaucus Papilio machaon oregonius Papilio multicaudata Papilio polyxenes asterius Papilio rumiko Papilio rutulus Papilio zelicaon Phyciodes mylitta Phyciodes pulchella Pieris rapae Plejebus acmon Poanes melane Polites sabuleti Polygonia satyrus Pyrgus communis Rothschildia jacobaeae Samia cynthia advena Samia ricini Smerinthus cerisyi Smerinthus ophthalmica Strymon melinus Trichoplusia ni Uresephita reversalis Vanessa annabella Vanessa atalanta Vanessa cardui Unidentified Lepidoptera Hybrids Papilio glaucus × Papilio rutulus Papilio polyxenes asterius × Papilio zelicaon Orthoptera Melanoplus devastator Phaneroptera nana Pristoceuthophilus pacificus Scudderia mexicana Trimerotropis pallidipennis Phasmatodea Carausius morosus Phyllium giganteum Mantodea Mantis religiosa Phyllocrania paradoxa Hymenoptera Apis mellifera Bombus vosnesenskii Brachymeria ovata Linepithema humile Pediobius sp. Polistes dominula Xylocopa varipuncta Unidentified Diptera Lucilia sericata Unidentified Hemiptera Brochymena sp. Leptoglossus sp. Nezara viridula Odonata Argia vivida Libellula croceipennis Coleoptera Coccinella septempunctata Cycloneda polita Diabrotica undecimpunctata Hippodamia convergens Araneae (Class: Arachnida) Araneus diadematus Phidippus johnsoni |