Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009 - 54

perature. Also, that species consists only of females that reproduce by parthenogenesis and easily lay fertile eggs. The walkingsticks I see every year are northern walkingsticks Diapheromera femorata, also known as “stickbugs,” “specters,” “prairie alligators,” “devil’s horses,” “witches horses” and “devil’s darning needles,” among other quaint names. Although I’ve never noticed any harm from these insects, they are defoliators of deciduous trees in the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada. As young nymphs, they eat a wide variety of low-growing shrubs, such as rose, juneberry, sweet fern, blueberry and strawberry. As older nymphs and adults, they prefer the leaves of black oak species, basswood and wild cherry, but will also eat quaking aspen, paper birch, hickory, locust and apple tree leaves. However, this species does not fly, so even a stream or road will stop their spread. Two parasitic flies — Biomya genalis and Phasmophaga antennalis — destroy the nymphs. The former lays its eggs on a walkingstick nymph that hatches and eats the nymph, but the latter lays its eggs on foliage that a nymph eats. The northern walkingstick, like daddy long-legs, mates in late summer, and the female continues laying up to 150 black and white eggs that look like miniature beans, three every day, until cold weather arrives. She drops them wherever she happens to be on a tree, and they fall to the ground. The eggs overwinter in the leaf litter and stay unhatched through the following spring, summer, autumn and winter, only hatching into pale green miniature adults the next year in May or early June. Northern walkingsticks go through six larval stages before maturing in late July or early August. The female is larger than the male — 2½ to 3½ inches long — and is greenish-brown and he is brown. Both have long antennae that are two thirds the length of their bodies. To defend themselves, the young nymphs drop to the ground or jerk back-and-forth, but the older ones and adults remain still, stretching their front legs beside their antennae so that they look even more like harmless twigs. They sometimes release a bad-smelling liquid, too. Birds, such as common grackles, blue jays, wild turkeys, American crows, American robins, whitebreasted nuthatches and Carolina chickadees, often prey on them, especially during an infestation when they are more noticeable. Five-lined skinks, Chinese mantids, white-footed mice, eastern chipmunks and eastern gray squirrels also find them tasty. With more than 3,000 species worldwide, most of which live in the tropics, walkingstick life histories are diverse. For instance, Eurycantha horrida (its species’ name hints at its ferociousness) has large spines on its hind legs that it uses to defend itself and to compete with other males. Some species, such as the southern U.S. species, the American or twoGAME NEWS

Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009