One of the pleasures of being on an extended vacation is the freedom to spend all the time you want to play with and ruminate on unusual creatures such as the walking stick
My wife and I found a walking stick one day this August. Actually it was half dead having fallen on the pavement from its perch high up on a pine tree.
We brought it home in the hope that it will survive its injuries and live long to populate our house plants again with a lot of its non-destructive insect tribe. Before I let it go (or rather before it eventually passed away), I had the pleasure of my senior life playing with it, setting it on a leaf here or a twig there, and taking photos.
A 9-Inch Pencil-Thick Beauty
First, I laid it down straight beside a foot rule to determine its length. From head to tail, it measured 9 inches.
Then to indicate how fat or slender it was, I held it on my palm along with a ballpen.
Then in succession, I put it on a number of my wife's plants not only to record how it looked but also to document some of the plants currently growing on our veranda.
I have not yet seen a walking stick in Dupax. In fact, even in Los Baños I have not encountered a live one in the greenery of Mount Makiling.
Hi, this is Phasmotaenia elongata, typically found on pine trees. Phasmotaenia sanchezi is a different species, not found on pines.
ReplyDeleteI foun about 10 species in Mt. Makiling Greenery.
Best,
Oliver Zompro
Many thanks for the scientific names, Oliver. There is also a brown species I occasionally see sunbathing among the gumamela (binatang-hambog variety) bushes. Is this probably a different species? Oh yes, I heard sometime back that a UPLB researcher (Mr. Eusebio?) was specializing on walking sticks. Perhaps you know each other...
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