Stick Insect, Female

Description:

This was a special sighting, to see a Female Phasmid molting to full Adult. The sequence of the picture showing the stages of molting is Pic #5 when I first spotted her, she had completely molted, just hanging from her abdomen from her old skin. She stayed in this position for more than half an hour, letting her body stretch to a bigger size. Her wings are just like a ribbon-like. Pic #4 showed she had flipped over. Pic #3 showed her wings starting to stretch Pics #2 & #1 showed her wings more developed. Didn't wait for the whole molting process to complete as we had spent nearly an hour with her during the night. In the final phase of the molting, she is likely to eat her old skin (will show this in another spotting post). Most Phasmids will eat their old skin, but not all.

Habitat:

Tropical forest. As this is a winged specie, quite a large one, around 15 cm in size, she is likely to spend more time higher up among the trees since she can fly.

Notes:

She was found a bit high hanging from the branches, around 2.5 meters, hence wasn't able to take closer up pictures of her.