Northern Walkingstick (Diapheromera femorata): Stick Insect Facts

What does a northern walkingstick look like?

The northern walkingstick, also called the common walkingstick, has a long, thin, almost cylindrical body, six long legs and a pair of threadlike antennae about two-thirds as long as the body. Its head is small and squarish. There are no wings at all, in either sex.

Color varies with age and sex. Newly hatched nymphs are green, and they turn brown or gray as they grow. Adult males are usually brown, while females tend to be grayish or greenish brown. Males are thinner, and their middle and hind legs are often banded. At the tip of the male’s abdomen is a pair of claspers used to hold the female during mating.

When the insect rests, it stretches its front legs straight forward alongside the antennae. This makes the head disappear into a single long line, so the whole animal looks like a forked twig. Learn more about this disguise in how do stick insects hide?.

How big is a northern walkingstick?

Females are larger than males, as in most stick insects. Measurements usually refer to the body alone, without legs or antennae.

Including legs and antennae, a large female can look roughly twice as long as her body. Even so, the northern walkingstick is small next to its tropical relatives (see below).

Habitat and range

The northern walkingstick is native to North America. Its range covers most of the eastern United States, from Maine south along the Atlantic coast to northern Florida, and west across the Midwest to the Great Plains, with records reaching North Dakota and New Mexico. In Canada it lives in southern Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba, and it has also been reported from Alberta. It is the only stick insect native to Canada.

Its main habitat is deciduous and mixed woodland, especially forest with oaks, hazel and black cherry. It also turns up along forest edges, in wooded parks, orchards, suburban yards and gardens near trees. Because adults feed high in the canopy, they are seen most often in late summer and early fall, when they come down trunks, walls and fences, or are knocked down by wind.

What do northern walkingsticks eat?

Northern walkingsticks are herbivores that eat the leaves of trees and shrubs. They are generalists, but they clearly prefer oaks and hazel. Newly hatched nymphs often feed on American hazel (Corylus americana) and black cherry (Prunus serotina). Where those are scarce, they use white oak, and older nymphs and adults often move to black oak. Black locust, beaked hazel, sweetfern and blueberry have also been recorded as food.

They chew leaves with strong mandibles and often eat everything except the main veins, leaving a skeleton of the leaf. A walkingstick typically feeds on one leaf for a while, pauses, then walks on to the next. Feeding peaks at night, roughly between 9 pm and 3 am, when birds are not hunting.

Behavior: twig camouflage and swaying

Northern walkingsticks spend most of their lives alone and nearly motionless among leaves and twigs. Their main defense is camouflage. By day they rest along a stem with legs pressed close to the body, and they move only slowly. Like many stick insects, they can rock gently from side to side, a motion that resembles a twig stirring in the breeze.

If a walkingstick is grabbed by a leg, it can shed that leg at a weak point near the base, a trick called autotomy. Nymphs can partly regrow a lost leg over their next molts, although adults, which no longer molt, cannot.

Northern walkingsticks do not bite people, sting, or spray chemicals. Their defense is almost entirely about not being noticed. Little is known about how they communicate, but chemical signals called pheromones probably help males find females.

Reproduction and life cycle

The northern walkingstick has three life stages: egg, nymph and adult. Like grasshoppers and mantises, it has no pupal stage, a pattern called incomplete metamorphosis.

Mating takes place in late summer and fall. The smaller male climbs onto the female’s back and may stay with her for some time. About a week after mating she begins to lay eggs, mostly from late August to October. She does not glue or bury them. Instead she drops them one by one from the treetops to the forest floor. During large outbreaks so many eggs fall that observers have compared the sound to light rain.

Each egg is a hard, seed-like capsule about 2.5 mm (0.1 in) long with a small knob at one end. The eggs spend the winter in the leaf litter. In southern parts of the range most hatch the following spring or early summer, giving one generation a year. In the north many eggs wait through a second winter, so the population follows a two-year cycle. Read more in how do stick insects lay eggs?.

Nymphs usually hatch at night, in humid conditions, around the time oak leaves are fully open in late spring. A tiny green nymph climbs the nearest tree trunk and begins to feed. It molts about five times, sometimes four or six, before becoming an adult by mid to late summer. The adults die when frost arrives, so the egg is the only stage that survives winter.

Some stick insects can reproduce without males, but northern walkingsticks normally mate. See can stick insects reproduce without males? for how other species manage it.

Predators, parasites and outbreaks

Birds are the main predators of walkingsticks, including American crows and American robins. Many other woodland birds, along with small mammals, spiders and predatory insects such as praying mantises, also take them when they can find them.

Eggs and young are attacked by small parasitic insects. A tiny wasp, Mesitiopterus kahlii, develops inside walkingstick eggs, and parasitic flies lay their young on nymphs. Dry weather at hatching time can also kill many nymphs, which may fail to push their way out of the egg capsule without enough moisture.

Outbreaks in oak forests

Most of the time northern walkingsticks are scattered and rarely seen. In some years, however, local populations explode. During these outbreaks walkingsticks can strip whole stands of oaks and other hardwoods of their leaves in late summer. Repeated defoliation over several years can kill branches and weaken or kill trees.

Outbreaks have been recorded in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and in the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, often in parks and recreation areas. Because the insects cannot fly, an outbreak usually stays within a few hundred meters. In northern areas with a two-year cycle, heavy damage may appear mainly in alternate years. Large numbers of walkingsticks also feed many insect-eating birds.

Conservation status

The northern walkingstick has not been evaluated by the IUCN Red List. It is common and widespread across a very large range and needs no special protection.

Some of its relatives are far less fortunate. The Lord Howe Island stick insect (Dryococelus australis), a heavy, wingless species from a small island off Australia, was thought extinct after rats arrived in 1918. It was rediscovered in 2001 on the sea stack Ball’s Pyramid and is listed as Critically Endangered, with zoo breeding programs helping it survive.

Giant tropical relatives

The northern walkingstick belongs to the order Phasmatodea, which contains more than 3,500 described species of stick and leaf insects. They live on every continent except Antarctica and are most diverse in the tropics, especially Southeast Asia and South America. The island of Borneo alone has more than 300 species.

Some of the longest insects on Earth are stick insects. Chan’s megastick (Phobaeticus chani) from Borneo measured about 57 cm (22 in) with its legs stretched out. A female of a Chinese species in the genus Phryganistria, found in Guangxi in 2014, measured about 62 cm (24 in) with legs outstretched, and captive-bred offspring were later reported to be even longer. These are the longest insects on record. The heaviest stick insect is probably the jungle nymph (Heteropteryx dilatata) of Malaysia, whose females can weigh around 50–65 g (about 2 oz). For more giants, see the largest insects in the world.

Myths and facts

Myth: walkingsticks are venomous or can sting. The northern walkingstick has no stinger, no venom and no chemical spray. The idea may come from the two-striped walkingstick (Anisomorpha buprestoides) of the southeastern US, which can spray an irritating fluid toward the eyes. If that spray reaches the eyes and causes pain or vision problems, seek emergency medical help immediately or call 911.

Myth: walkingsticks are a kind of grasshopper or mantis. Stick insects were once grouped with grasshoppers, but today they form their own order, Phasmatodea. The name comes from the Greek word phasma, meaning phantom or apparition.

Fact: the eggs look like seeds. Many stick insect eggs, including those of the northern walkingstick, resemble plant seeds, complete with a fatty knob that can attract ants.

Relationship with people

For most people, a walkingstick on a porch screen or tree trunk in September is a pleasant surprise and a favorite find for children and naturalists. The insects are harmless to handle gently, although their legs break off easily, so it is best simply to watch them.

Foresters pay attention to the species because of its occasional outbreaks in oak woodland. Ecologists, meanwhile, use walkingsticks and their relatives to study camouflage, egg dispersal by ants and birds, and reproduction without males.