During my morning ritual of hanging laundry before driving Mathew to school, I had a wonderful surprise! Two walking sticks were hanging out on the clothesline. If you have ever come across walking sticks in the “wild,” it always comes as a surprise, mixed with a little confusion. First, you think it’s an old stick or stem in a weird place. Then when you look closer, because you always have to take another look…and you are like “Oh MY GOD, THERE IS A WALKING STICK,” and then “NO THERE ARE TWO WALKING STICKS!” Believe me it happens every time (just not very often).
Of Course, I started screaming, “MATHEW! COME HERE RIGHT NOW! MATHEW!” He thinks something awful has happened, so he runs outside and I tell him, I found two walking sticks. He runs faster and tells me that they are very rare. I tell him, it looks like they may be mating as they are a bit connected. He claims that is was probably mating season. After a little googling, I found out that Mathew was right. They do tend to mate is the fall and over winter their eggs. I also found out that they have been known to mate for a long time – some have mated for 1400 hours. I know that sounds unbelievable, but that’s what some people claim. So of course, after reading that I needed to check on our little walking sticks in the afternoon, but they were gone. Perhaps they started 57days ago and I never noticed them before. Another interesting fact is that Stick insects can reproduce parthenogenetically, in other words without the need for males. Stick insects are able to reproduce almost entirely without males. Unmated females produce eggs that become more females. When a male does manage to mate with a female, there’s a 50/50 chance their offspring will be male. I love the dichotomy of these strange insects – mate for 1400 hours or not.
Well, I just had to share.
