Walking Bean

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Walking Bean
Walking bean (Diapherodes gigantea), male on the left, female on the right

Walking bean ( Diapherodes gigantea ),
male on the left, female on the right

Systematics
Order : Ghost horror (Phasmatodea)
Family : Phasmatidae
Subfamily : Cladomorphinae
Tribe : Haplopodini
Genre : Diapherodes
Type : Walking Bean
Scientific name
Diapherodes gigantea
( Gmelin , 1789)

The Wandering bean ( Diapherodes gigantea ) is a in the Central American region, especially in Grenada and St. Vincent domestic kind from the order of the stick insects (Phasmatodea). For this species, too, the name giant ghost is occasionally found, but this is not clear because it is used for various larger species of ghost.

features

The common name walking bean refers to the habitus of adult females. These are bright green in color and with a length of 13 to 19 centimeters, they are significantly larger than the males. Their antennae protrude a good third over the front legs. Both the front wings, here designed as tegmina , and the even smaller rear wings are greatly reduced in them. Male animals are initially green after molting to the imago , but darken in the following days and are then more brown in color. They reach a length of 10 to 11 centimeters. Their antennae are also significantly longer than the front legs. The front wings are also formed only as a flaky tegmina and cover the base of the rear wing, which in turn is a good two thirds of the abdomen ( abdominal cover). On the front edges of the fore and hind wings there is a beige stripe, which merges into a short, light side line when the wings are attached.

Reproduction

The fertilized females drop their brown eggs on the ground. These have a very rugged, bark-like shell (exochorion), are a good five millimeters long and more than three millimeters wide. The micropylar plate is shaped like an upside-down heart. The eggs hatch about two centimeters long green nymphs , which grow into adults in five to six months. All nymph stages, including those of the males, are colored green. Adult animals live to be six to eight months old. As with many other ghost horrors, the Walking Bean is also known to have half- sided hurricanes , so-called gynanders .

Systematics

The Walking Bean was first described as Mantis gigas by Dru Drury in 1773 . In 1789 this name was changed to Mantis gigantea by Johann Friedrich Gmelin . George Robert Gray established the genus Diapherodes in 1835, in which he transferred the species as a type species , but initially under the old specific epithet Diapherodes gigas . In the following years the species was wrongly described under other names, which led to several synonyms . At times, Diapherodes angulata (syn. = Mantis angulata Fabricius , 1793; later also Phasma angulata , Cyphocrana angulata ) was used as a synonym. This was developed in 2016 by Frank Hennemann et al. revalidated as a separate species. In addition to the nominate form , the subspecies Diapherodes gigantea dominicae was described from the island of Dominica in 1938 . This results in the following system:

  • Diapherodes gigantea dominicae Rehn, JAG & Hebard , 1938
  • Diapherodes gigantea gigantea ( Gmelin , 1789)
(Syn. = Cyphocrana cornuta Le Peletier & Serville , 1827)
(Syn. = Mantis gigas Drury , 1773; later Diapherodes gigas )

Terrarium keeping

In the terrarium, the species can be fed with leaves from the rose family (Rosaceae), but also from beech , oak , chestnut , wild wine, etc. Temperatures above 25 ° C should be avoided. In particular, newly hatched and younger nymphs should be kept cool at temperatures of a maximum of 20 ° C in order to avoid high losses. Diapherodes gigantea was introduced from Grenada in 2002 and assigned PSG number 260 by the Phasmid Study Group .

photos

  • Eggs, left two from dorsal, right from lateral, the one below from above

  • L1 and L3 nymph

  • subadult female

  • fresh adult male

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Phasmatodea page by Oskar V. Conle and Frank H. Hennemann
  2. ^ Frank H. Hennemann , Oskar V. Conle & Daniel E. Perez-Gelabert : Studies on Neotropical Phasmatodea XVI: Revision of Haplopodini Günther, 1953 (rev. Stat.), With notes on the subfamily Cladomorphinae Bradley & Galil, 1977 and the descriptions of a new tribe, four new genera and nine new species (Phasmatodea: “Anareolatae”: Phasmatidae: Cladomorphinae) (Zootaxa 4128), Magnolia Press, Auckland, New Zealand, pp. 1–211; 27 Jun. 2016, doi : 10.11646 / zootaxa.4128.1 .
  3. ^ Paul D. Brock : Phasmida Species File Online . Version 5.0 / 5.0 (accessed November 17, 2018)
  4. ↑ Phasmid Study Group Culture List ( Memento from December 5, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) (English)

literature

  • Daniel Otte, Paul Brock: Phasmida Species File . Cafe Press, Philadelphia 2005, ISBN 1-929014-08-2 .

Web links

Commons : Walking Bean  - album with pictures, videos and audio files