Ive been seeing a couple reports about Indian walking sticks around my area and want to document and study them for a while to see their effect on local plant life and also their interactions with native Timema and the other walking sticks. But so far I after looking around my neighborhood in the Ivy I heavily underestimated how hard it is to find these elusive creatures, and it upsets me how so many people are just finding them on pavement like nothing! Does anyone out there have tips or even methods to find them? I would heavily appreciate it.
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You shouldn’t be restricting yourself to ivy. Carausius morosus is one of the more polyphagous stick insects, so seeking a particular food plant may not be effective. Here in the Bay Area, California, I’ve seen them eat a bunch of random garden ornamentals aside from the various plants listed online. Sometimes I’ve stumbled across nymphs feeding when I go out in the garden at night. I’ve also found them in the day too, but they are usually inactive, resting near the base of the plant in a stick position. Sometimes adults will just show up on the wall, which is what most of the observations on iNat are. I highly doubt anyone is “finding them like nothing”; they are simply stumbling across them randomly.
As far as interactions with native species, probably quite limited. Here in California, C. morosus tend to be around urban gardens only. It’s an exotic species mostly feeding on exotic plants. Timema generally stick to wild, undisturbed habitat. This is a common distribution pattern for many insects in California; either predominantly urban or wild, but not both.
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I was restricting myself to some local Ivy because I’ve seen a lot of skeletonized leaves in it which had me thinking of these, but you are right, I should be looking at the other plants and shrubs as well.
So would I be better off going out around evening with a flashlight? And what should I generally look for in/ on a plant to know where is a good place to look besides the skeletonized leaves?
I’m by no means an expert on finding stick insects, so my advice it quite limited. I just happen to find some from time to time around the garden. They are nocturnal, so yes, searching at night might help. It’s easier to check small herbaceous plants like vegetables and flowers in a garden rather than large, unruly plants like ivy. At least from my observation, their feeding damage isn’t really noticable at all and I certainly wouldn’t describe it as a skeletonized pattern. I doubt they would do any noticable damage unless there was a huge number of them, which would probably be quite rare.
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I see. Some have told me that is usually their feeding pattern on Ivy but I will keep an open mind. I will try a search tonight if not tomorrow and see what I find. Thank you so much for the insight I’m very sure this will help a lot!