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Titan stick insect

Acrophylla wuelfingi

Description:

A very large brown stick insect Although it has large carefully folded wings she cannot fly. Measuring 30 cm this is the second largest species in Australia.

Habitat:

This specimen is captive bred. They are native to Northern Queensland.

Notes:

Known as the titan stick insect, wuelfingi's stick insect or the giant brown stick insect, there are six to eight Acrophylla species in Australia. This one featured here is Acrophylla wuelfingi and very similar to A. titan found further south. The ways to differentiate adult species is by the white blaze on the forewing shown in pic #3. and the short cerci. This does not occur in A. titan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pha...

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12 Comments

MartinL
MartinL 11 years ago

Thank you Leuba. I'll show you the male next.

Leuba Ridgway
Leuba Ridgway 11 years ago

I love the first shot - what an amazing insect !

MartinL
MartinL 11 years ago

Thanks Sergio and Gerardo and Leanne.
Sergio, that would be Greek mythology all over again; they would hardly clash since they are both vegetarian. Fortunately mantids don't get this large!

LeanneGardner
LeanneGardner 11 years ago

Wow!

Gerardo Aizpuru
Gerardo Aizpuru 11 years ago

Fantastic :)

Sergio Monteiro
Sergio Monteiro 11 years ago

We could put your insect together with mine and shoot a movie, "Clash of the Titan bugs"!

MartinL
MartinL 11 years ago

Thank you kittuandme.

kittuandme
kittuandme 11 years ago

Nice spotting martinl!

MartinL
MartinL 11 years ago

Thanks Yuko and Chun and Lauren.
@ Chun, notice in my next spotting how well the head tucks into the outstretched forelegs. Evolution is certainly a wonderful fine tuner.
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/173...

LaurenZarate
LaurenZarate 11 years ago

Really neat!

ChunXingWong
ChunXingWong 11 years ago

Evolution is wonderful.
I didn't notice that there are space between their forelegs for it's mouthparts.

YukoChartraw
YukoChartraw 11 years ago

This is incredible!!!

MartinL
Spotted by
MartinL

Victoria, Australia

Spotted on Jan 28, 2013
Submitted on Jan 28, 2013

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