The other day, I was trying to identify the owner of the nest in the hackberry tree outside my bedroom window. I was hoping to see a painted bunting sitting there. Through my binoculars, I saw something else nearby. It was a slightly different color than the other branches. I kept returning to it, adjusting my binoculars, trying to get a better view. It resembled a walking stick (the plant-eating cousin of the praying mantis), but it was enormous, almost as long as a ruler. Plus, if it actually was a walking stick, it was hanging upside down, which I thought was odd. I kept waiting for it to move. I figured that would answer my question—branch, crumpled up leaf, or insect? But it never did move, not even a little. The mosquitos, on the other hand, were hovering near my ankles, so I headed back inside.
But I was curious. I googled Texas walking stick, and there it was—the longest insect in the United States. Some females have been measured at over seven inches long! I figured the individual in the tree outside my window was a female because, as mentioned, her abdomen appeared to be about the size and thickness of a pencil. Not only that, but I learned that when walking sticks moult, they hang upside down and don’t move. Crazy!
The next day, I went back outside with my binoculars and found the walking stick in the same place, about two-thirds of the way up the hackberry tree. Walking sticks are not rare, its just that we often don’t see them. They are master’s of disguise. According to the Texas A&M website, adult walking sticks love to eat hackberry leaves (a tree that is sometimes referred to as a” trash tree” in Central Texas) and native grass seeds. (Another win for our backyard pocket prairie.) In the fall, they drop their seed-like eggs into the leaf litter where they overwinter. In the spring, the life cycle begins again. Apparently, walking sticks emerge in cycles, sometimes referred to as outbreaks or infestations, because they have been known to rapidly defoliate trees. So, where there is one, there may be one hundred. Now that makes for a heck of an eye-spy game!