Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Gray's Leaf Insect

Phyllium bioculatum

Description:

Disguised as leaf. Looks like one....

Habitat:

Guava Tree ( this thing fell to the ground in our house, lucky me!)

Notes:

It's amazing, I mean it's an actual leaf, the original form is( that's what I believe in and my family..but I'm not sure.)

1 Species ID Suggestions

Gray's Leaf Insect
Phyllium bioculatum ADW: Phyllium bioculatum: CLASSIFICATION


Sign in to suggest organism ID

6 Comments

There are many insects which look like other, sometimes inert, objects, like the "stick insects" or walking sticks as some call them. There are moths which can look like leaves, discarded cigarette ends, or even bird droppings. Birds will sit on a tree branch looking like a leaf or when they are multicoloured the can merge into the background surprisingly well, just as the butterflies and moths do. Butterflies and Moths often have different colours on the top and bottom of the wings and with moths on the fore and aft wings. They are easy to see while flying, then they settle and apparently vanish when the fold their wings to show the other side. Grasshoppers have colourful wings which vanish completely when on the ground.

yunseong1
yunseong1 9 years ago

That insect looks instead of a leaf.

augustgray
augustgray 9 years ago

Wow, fantastic example of using bio-mimicry as camouflage.

This is neither a plant nor a leaf but an arthropod which has evolved to disguise itself as a leaf.
Please remove this from the missions you have added it to, it is neither a vegetable or a ladybug.
Also please remove the entry in the scientific name field, Scientific names should be Genus + species only, all other scientific references go in the Notes section..

jessica10
jessica10 9 years ago

very pretty and cool but I am sort of creeping out

Beauty !

Korea Kent Foreign School
Spotted by a stud ent at Korea Kent Foreign School

Sri Lanka

Spotted on Aug 26, 2014
Submitted on Aug 26, 2014

Related Spottings

Leaf insect Gray's Leaf Insect Leaf insect leaf insect

Nearby Spottings

Spotting Butterfly Jade Hawkmoth caterpillar Goat
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team