Visitors to the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology stopped and stared as director Lynn Kimsey lifted the walking leaf from its enclosure.
The Malaysian insect looked like a leaf right down to its gnarled brown edges and veined body, thin as paper. "That's an incredibly cool animal," said Katie Hager of Davis, who had brought her grandson Richard, 10, to the museum.
The two adult walking leaves have astonished visitors since they arrived at UC Davis earlier this year, Kimsey said. Researchers have succeeded in breeding them – not an easy task, she said.
The babies looked like little green shoots. They swayed in the breeze when Kimsey blew on them.
The walking leaves are part of the order of stick and leaf insects called phasmatodea. They've evolved to look like the plants they eat.
The Bohart is currently featuring them in its "petting zoo" of live insects.
There are giant New Guinea walking sticks, 6-inch-long monsters that can deliver a mean jab, Kimsey said.
Others hail from Australia, Borneo and Bangladesh.
Next on the Bohart's acquisition list, said Kimsey, is an orchid mantid, a fantastic pink insect from Southeast Asia that mimics the petals of a flower.
"They've had 300 million years to look like this," she said.
Source: SacBee
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