A Prickly Character

What am I looking at?

This is a female Malayan jungle nymph (Heteropteryx dilatata) – a largely tropical insect known as a phasmid. You can see its compound eyes (1); chewing mouthparts, with mandibles covered by two pairs of segmented maxilla (2); antennae (3); and defensive spikes (4).

Click on the right arrow to see the whole insect in both defensive and relaxed postures.

Biology in the background

These insects can be found in the jungles of Southeast Asia, including in Thailand, Singapore, Sumatra, and Borneo. They are generalist herbivores, feeding on a variety of leaves and berries. The males have functional wings, suitable for short flights. The females’ wings are reduced, extending only to the middle of their abdomen. When they’re threatened, they put their head and upper thorax down and raise their abdomen and hind legs up in a defensive posture, as shown in one of the additional images. They can also kick their legs in a strong scissoring motion, and that, combined with the spurs that line their femur and tibia, provides a formidable defense against most predators.

Heteropteryx is highly sexually dimorphic (meaning the appearance and anatomy of males and females are different), to the point that the two sexes don’t even look like members of the same species. The winged males are brown, have dark markings, and are only two-thirds the length and one-eighth the weight of the bright green, flightless females. The insect’s genus – Heteropteryx – refers to the difference in wing size between the males and the females, coming from the Greek words hetero, meaning “different,” and pteryx, meaning “wing.”

These insects can grow up to 17 centimeters long (more than 6 inches).

Technique

These images were created using macrophotography.