Brasidas foveolatus

Brasidas foveolatus
	Brasidas foveolatus , ; male left, female right
Systematics
Order :	Ghost horror (Phasmatodea)
Family :	Heteropterygidae
Subfamily :	Obriminae
Tribe :	Obrimini
Genre :	Brasidas
Type :	Brasidas foveolatus
Scientific name
	Brasidas foveolatus
	( Redtenbacher , 1906)

Brasidas foveolatus is a stick insects - sort of the family Heteropterygidae . After Brasidas samarensis , it is the best known representative of the genus Brasidas .

features

In habit , the species corresponds to typical representatives of the Obrimini (e.g. Trachyaretaon carmelae ). As with all Brasidas species, a pair of characteristic holes can be found in the metasternum of Brasidas foveolatus . At around 80 to 95 millimeters in length, the females are significantly larger and plump than the approx. 55 to 65 millimeters long males. In both sexes, brown, more rarely olive-brown colors dominate. The more vividly drawn and more variable females can show light, mostly greenish areas , especially on the lateral and rear edge of the metanotum . Furthermore, numerous black tubercles on the head and the thorax are clearly distinguished from the brown base color. Often there is also an almost white area that extends from the middle of the sixth to almost the entire width of the seventh abdominal segment. There is almost always a pair of black spots on the eighth segment. With this combination of colors, the end of the abdomen and the laying stinger are reminiscent of a head, more precisely a bird's head. Occasionally there are also females who wear a wide, white longitudinal band over their entire body on a brown background, which is then also supplemented by the black spots on the eighth segment of the abdomen. Adult males are usually brown in color and, like the females, only slightly prickly.

Egg in different views

Occurrence, way of life and reproduction

Brasidas foveolatus is native to the Mindanao archipelago in the Philippines .

The four to five millimeters long and two to three millimeters wide eggs are like all Obrimini by means of the end of the abdomen ( abdominal filed located) ovipositor into the ground. Their exochorion is gray and becomes darker when the air humidity is higher and lighter again when it is dry. The dorsal area is bulging and bulging and the lid ( operculum ), which is always dark gray in color, sits obliquely on the egg, sloping down towards the ventral side, so that an opercular angle of about 10 degrees is created (see also the structure of the phasmid egg ). The nymphs hatch from the eggs after about four months and then need another four months to grow.

Systematics

After Josef Redtenbacher had described this species as Obrimus foveolatus in 1906 based on a male originally deposited in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris , they placed James Abram Garfield Rehn and John WH Rehn in their work from 1938/39 along with another species established genus Brasidas . In this they not only described four more new species, but also a new subspecies of Brasidas foveolatus based on a single male . This male has been deposited as a holotype in the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC . It differs from the type specimen of the nominate form, which has meanwhile been regarded as missing, in particular by the structuring of pro and mesonotums , e.g. B. in the expression of thorns and tubercles. The two subspecies are:

Brasidas foveolatus foveolatus ( Redtenbacher , 1906)
Brasidas foveolatus asper Rehn, JAG & Rehn, JWH , 1939

Terrariums

The first representatives of this species found their way into lovers' terrariums in 2008 . They came from Mindanao Island and were collected there in Nabunturan and on Lake Agko near Mount Apo . The species is listed by the Phasmid Study Group under PSG number 301.

Brasidas foveolatus is easy to feed in the terrarium with leaves of blackberries , wild roses , oaks , ivy or St. John's wort . Occasionally the forage plants should be sprayed with water. To enable the eggs to be laid, the floor of the terrarium should be covered a few centimeters with a slightly moist soil substrate.