eTawau > Insects of Borneo > Stick insects > A winged pair at Bukit Gemok

Stick insects with wings

A mating pair on a shrub leaf at Bukit Gemok, on a November morning — and where their wings were hiding

Most people picture a stick insect as a twig with legs, and most of the stick insects on this site fit that picture: long, slow, wingless. This pair does not. Both of them have wings, folded so tightly along the back that you would take them for a stripe on the body. I found them on the leaf of a shrub at Bukit Gemok, the male on the larger female, and they stayed together while I photographed them.

Two long, slender stick insects lying one alongside the other on a glossy green leaf in sunshine. Both are brown and green, with very long thin antennae, long green legs with yellow joints and yellow feet, and a long narrow brown strip finely lined along each back. The larger one is above and to the left; the smaller one lies beside it, lower on the leaf. — **This is what you would see.** The pair on the leaf, Bukit Gemok, 1 November 2009, 9.48 in the morning. Nothing in the picture has been moved.

A stick insect, not a mantis

The same pair from the side, with six labels: the antennae, longer than the front legs; the front legs held forward beside the head; the smaller male; the larger female with her thick brownish abdomen; the male's abdomen curling round to hers; and the folded wing, a long finely lined strip along the back. The photographer's fingertip holds the edge of the leaf. — **The pair from the side, a minute later.** My fingertip is holding the leaf steady; the insects were not touched. 9.49 am. Labelled; nothing else altered.

Long, thin, green-and-brown insects with long legs are sometimes taken for praying mantises. Two things settle it here, and you can see both without touching the animal:

The front legs. A mantis has thick, spiny front legs folded under its chest, ready to snatch. These front legs are as thin as the others and are held straight forward, beside the head. A stick insect at rest often does this, so that legs, head and antennae make one long line, like a twig.
The head. A mantis has a triangular head on a neck that swivels to watch you. These heads are small and carried low, in line with the body.

They are not grasshoppers either: their back legs are as slender as the rest, with none of the thick thigh a grasshopper jumps with. They are stick insects, order Phasmatodea.

Where the wings are

Look along the back of each insect and you will see a long, narrow brown strip, finely lined along its length, reaching almost to the end of the body. That is the wing, folded.

In winged stick insects the front wings are usually short, and it is the back wings that do the flying. At rest the back wing folds up lengthways like a closed fan and tucks along the body, so only its stiff front edge shows: the lined strip in these photographs. Opened, it would be a broad, thin, fan-shaped wing, many times wider than the strip you see.

This is the first winged stick insect record on this site. The earlier stick insect pages are all of animals seen without wings, including another mating pair, at Sayap in Kinabalu Park, where both sexes are wingless and covered in spines. Put the two pairs side by side and you have the range of the group: at one end, spiny wingless animals built to be overlooked; at the other, slender ones that can fly.

Which one is the female

In stick insects the female is usually the larger, because she carries the eggs, and the male is smaller and slimmer. My field note says the smaller male was on top of the larger female, and the photographs agree:

One insect is larger, with a thick brownish abdomen. That is the female.
The other is smaller and more slender, with a green abdomen, and the end of his abdomen curls round to hers. That is the male.

Mating stick insects often stay joined for hours, sometimes much longer, which is why a pair like this will sit still for a camera. It is also why you are more likely to find a pair in the daytime than to see one courting.

How far the name goes

Certain: stick insects, order Phasmatodea; a male and a female, both winged adults, mating.
A possibility, not a name: winged stick insects with antennae this long are often members of the subfamily Necrosciinae. That is where identifiers are likely to look first, but this page does not claim it.
Not determined: family, genus and species.

Two things would take it further: a photograph of the hind wing opened, whose colour and pattern often separate the genera, and close views of the end of the abdomen of each sex. Both need the animal in the hand, and this pair was left alone.

Leave a mating pair alone. Stick insects are harmless to people, but a pair that is pulled apart may not mate again. Photograph them where they are, as here, and if you must steady the leaf, hold the leaf, not the insects.

The record

1 November 2009 · 9.48 to 9.49 am · Bukit Gemok

A mating pair on the leaf of a shrub

Bukit Gemok Recreational Forest Park, Tawau, Sabah. One pair, not measured, on the leaf of an unidentified shrub tree, mating: the smaller male on the larger female, his abdomen curled round to hers. Both slender and stick-like; antennae very long and thin, longer than the front legs; front legs held forward beside the head; legs green with yellow joints and yellow feet; head marked with yellow and black; both winged, the folded hind wings lying along the back as a long, narrow, finely lined brown strip. Female with a thick brownish abdomen, male with a slender green one. Phasmatodea — stick insects. Family, genus and species not determined. One pair only. Two frames, 09:48:19 and 09:49:20. The leaf was held steady for the second frame; the insects were not touched and were left where they were.
— iNaturalist observation 403177919

The same morning

At 10:45 the same morning, about an hour later, I followed a Fish Hook Ant for six and a half minutes on a twig at Bukit Gemok. Two records from one walk: a pair of insects that trust stillness to keep them hidden, and an ant that trusts a pair of hooks.

All the small animals of Bukit Gemok are gathered on one page, from a caterpillar pretending to be a dead leaf to millipedes and a centipede's shed skin.

Words you may meet

Phasmatodea: The stick and leaf insects. Plant-eaters that defend themselves mainly by looking like something else and keeping still.
Tegmen: (plural tegmina) The front wing of a stick insect, when it is toughened and usually short, protecting the base of the hind wing.
Hind wing: In winged stick insects, the wing that does the flying. It folds lengthways like a fan, leaving only its stiff front edge showing.
Necrosciinae: A large group of mostly slender, often winged stick insects with long antennae, common in Southeast Asia.
In copula: Joined in mating.

Stick insects of Sabah — the index this record belongs to
A stick insect with its tail in the air — Bukit Gemok, 2015 — the other stick insect from this hill: thickset, spiny and wingless
Wingless stick insects mating at night — Sayap, Kinabalu Park — the other mating pair on this site
The Fish Hook Ant — photographed at Bukit Gemok an hour later the same morning
Bukit Gemok Recreational Forest Park · Small animals of Bukit Gemok
Insects of Borneo

About the photographs. Two frames by Wong Fook Yee with a Canon PowerShot A470 in macro mode, no flash, f/3.0, ISO 100, 6.3 mm, taken at 09:48:19 and 09:49:20 on 1 November 2009 at Bukit Gemok Recreational Forest Park, Tawau, Sabah. Both are camera originals that have never been opened in an editor. For this page they have been reduced and labelled; nothing has been sharpened, recoloured, added or removed. The unmarked full frames are on the iNaturalist record above.

The account of how stick insect wings fold, of the size difference between the sexes and of the length of mating is from the general entomological literature. The locality, date, times, the plant, the mating and which insect was on top are the photographer's own field observations. The plant is not identified. All photographs © Wong Fook Yee. Page written 25 September 2026.