July 15, 2009
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| .Steve Heydon peers at a walking leaf, an insect native ot Malaysia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
DAVIS— If you “turn over a new leaf” at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis, it may not be a leaf.
Two newly molted insects in the Bohart Museum look just like leaves—walking leaves.
But these “leaves” are made for walking.
The camouflaged insects (Phyllium giganteum) are green, wide and flat with a leaf-like abdomen, and they’re a big attraction at the Bohart.
“They’re hard to detect among the leaves,” said senior museum scientist Steve Heydon. “It’s surprising how long it takes visitors to find them.”
The insects, natives of Malaysia, dine on bramble, oak, eucalyptus, raspberry, rose, and red/yellow salmon berry. At the Bohart, they like blackberry leaves.
The insects, splotched with red, look like green autumn leaves turning color. “With insect camouflage, there’s never a perfect leaf,” Heydon said. “You see simulated damage.”
“We got them as nymphs,” Heydon said. “They grow very slowly, probably the slowest of all the insects we’ve ever had at the museum. It took nine months for them to molt and become adults, and they each did it within a day of each other.”
They mimic leaves in the wind by swaying as they walk, Heydon said, and females can reach a length of 5 inches.
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| The walking leaf insect (bottom, light colored) among blackberry leaves. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis, said she’s always craved walking leaves for the museum. “They are so incredibly bizarre-looking,” she said. “It’s amazing how this insect develops new skin when its abdomen is as flat as paper.”
The Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in 1124 Academic Surge, was founded in 1946 by the late Richard M. Bohart, former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. Dedicated to teaching, research and service, the insect museum houses more than seven million specimens, the seventh largest insect collection in North America.
The museum also includes live insects such as Madagascar hissing cockroaches and walking sticks, which visitors can hold, and black widow spiders.
More information about the Bohart, visiting hours, and guided tours is available from Heydon at (530) 752-0493 or Tabatha Yang, public outreach coordinator.
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--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
