Details
Diapheromera femorata
The common walkingstick is a long, twiglike insect of North American forests. It feeds on leaves at night and hides by day as part of a branch.
Map: Ecoregions 2017 © RESOLVE (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (PD)
It lives in deciduous forests of the Nearctic. Woodland edges and young stands with host trees such as oaks are useful habitat.
Length 7-9.5 cm; weight 0.3 g-1 g. A thin stick-shaped body and long legs make it resemble a twig, in brown or green tones. It lacks wings and may sway like a small branch.
Nocturnal and solitary, it freezes when threatened. Camouflage is its main defense.
A herbivore, it eats leaves of broadleaf trees. It chews leaf edges at night and rests on the same trees by day.
Females drop eggs one by one from the trees to the ground. Eggs overwinter in leaf litter, and hatchlings climb back into vegetation.
It is listed as Least Concern, though local populations can still be affected by habitat change, collection, or pollution.
