Medauroidea extradentata - Annam Walking Stick

Commonly known as the Vietnamese or Annam walking stick, is a species of the family Phasmatidae. (Medauroidea extradentata) is a large and thin stick insect that can be kept as a pet. Originally is occurs in Vietnam. It’s any easy to keep stick insect that is interesting because of it’s weird body shape. Males and females look different too, which is an interesting extra characteristic that makes the Annam stick insect different then for example the Indian stick insect.

The Latin name of this species is Medauroidea extradentata. The PSG number of this species is psg 5.

This stick insect can be fed with fresh leaves of bramble, oak, hazelnut, rose and raspberry.

Environmental conditions

Annam stick insect is a very easy stick insect that does not need a lot of special conditions. Just don’t make the temperature of humidity to extreme. Temperatures between 20 °C and 30 °C re perfect. In the night it’s okay to have it drop to 15 °C if necessary. Stray the enclosure of this stick insect with water every 2 or 3 days. This allows the insects to drink and to keep the air humidity up. If you notice that the stick insects drink a lot or have trouble shedding their skin you could spray them more often, e.g. every day.

Breeding Annam stick insects

It’s easy and fun to breed Annam stick insects. This species is parthenogenic, which means one female will lay eggs that hatch normally and will develop into females. In captivity you can also find males. If you mate a male and a female, the eggs will also give rise to males and females.
The eggs are quite small, oval in shape and grey in color. Keep the eggs in a small container on top of moist paper. Let the paper dry and then spray it again with water. After 5 to 8 weeks at 20 – 27 °C the eggs will hatch. Don’t keep too many eggs, because almost all eggs will hatch and it will be hard to take proper care of all the young stick insects. It’s better to remove the eggs than to have 50 too many baby stick insects to take care of!