Photo taken on Mar 07, 2013

I wil not speculate about some “8^th of March presents”, he just got what he was waiting for long, long time. When we bought these stick insects, the male (below) was the largest; he matured more than 3 months ago (that's quite long ago for him, as they leave less than a year). The rest 3 Sticks sloughed again and again, grew longer and thicker, got horns and thorns… And we looked at them trying to guess: are they different species or just different genders? And here, recently we had one more mass sloughing, and at last we sow: genders. The male is coniderably thinner and smaller then the females. That's quite usual for insects and spiders: no need to spend too much food on males, their role is short and cheap :).

The process lasted more than 2 hours: we found the Sticks in this position at 9 in the morning (and it all started some time ago, during dark night), it was over after 11, and they stayed embraced until next night). The photo was made at March 7, and at March 9 was already making happy another female.

species Annam stick insect Medauroidea extradentata