Field photographs of stick insects (order Phasmatodea) taken in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, by Wong Fook Yee. Every record on these pages is dated, located, and photographed in the wild — nothing here is a captive animal or a museum specimen.
No name is given beyond the rank the evidence actually supports. Most of the animals below are recorded only as Phasmatodea. That is not carelessness. Borneo's stick insect fauna is large and incompletely described, new species are still being named from the region, and the characters that separate genera — the arrangement of spines on the thorax, the shape of the terminal abdominal segments, and in many cases the male genitalia — are usually not visible in a field photograph. A wrong name is worse than no name, so each page states plainly what is known, what is not, and what would settle the question.
These pages are grouped by an observation, not by a classification. The animals below were all photographed without wings. That is a description of what was seen, not a taxonomic statement: immature stick insects are wingless whatever the adult becomes, so several of these may be nymphs of winged species. Each page says so where it applies.
Where an observation has been posted to iNaturalist, the link is given. That is where any determination will come from, and each page will be revised when one does.
25 December 2022, 19:43. Sayap Substation, Kinabalu Park, Kota Belud district, about 1,000 m.
A mating pair on
a moss-covered leaf; the female about 125 mm, both sexes wingless and spined, so well camouflaged
that they were found only with a torch. Two photographs, lateral and dorsal.
Recorded as Phasmatodea; probably Lonchodidae, subfamily Lonchodinae. Genus not
determined. —
iNaturalist observation
396445193
31 August 2011, 09:48. Park Headquarters car park, about 1,520 m. A bright green, smooth-bodied
insect about 100 mm long with vivid red bands at the leg joints and long thread-like antennae,
active in broad daylight, which climbed onto the photographer's hand of its own accord. Two
photographs.
Recorded as Phasmatodea. Family not determined; possibly an immature. —
iNaturalist observation
396594735
13 July 2015, 21:59. Night walk trail at the Park Headquarters, Tawau. A robust, heavily spined
brown insect about 75 mm long, resting motionless on a broad leaf, its abdomen held raised and
curled forward over the back. One photograph.
Recorded as Phasmatodea. Family not determined; possibly an immature. —
iNaturalist observation
396620408
7 July 2017, 19:54. Night walk trail at the Park Headquarters, Tawau, about 400 m. A dark
spiny insect about 100 mm long with a conspicuous cream-white patch on the thorax, resting
motionless on a broad leaf made glossy by recent rain. One photograph.
Recorded as Phasmatodea. Family not determined; possibly an immature. Similar
in build to the 2015 record from the same trail, but not recorded as the same species. —
iNaturalist observation
396772532
21 March 2009, 13:10. Coastal scrub about 50 m inland from the shore on Pulau Sapi, Tunku Abdul
Rahman Park, off Kota Kinabalu — at sea level. A bright green insect about 200 mm long, the
largest in this collection, with reddish-orange leg joints; it climbed onto the photographer's
cap. Active in full midday sun; the black background is flash, not night. A second, smaller
individual of similar shape was in the same bush. One photograph.
Recorded as Phasmatodea. Family not determined. —
iNaturalist observation
397049860
21 March 2009, 13:17. The same bush on Pulau Sapi, seven minutes after the record above. A very
slender green insect only about 30 mm long, with boldly banded antennae and legs, sitting on a
fingertip. Photographed without flash, hence the green background. One photograph.
Recorded as Phasmatodea. Family not determined; more likely a nymph than the
male of the large individual, given the sevenfold size difference. —
iNaturalist observation
397107639
All photographs © Wong Fook Yee. Index reviewed: 2 September 2026.