Stick Insects were previously considered to be related to the grasshoppers and crickets and were placed within the Orthoptera, but current thinking places them in their own Order.
They are all herbivorous and get their name from the remarkable resemblance of some species to twigs or branches. Many species are also very large and includes the longest known insect, the newly described (2008) Chan's Megastick (Phobaeticus chani), specimens of which have been measured with a body length of 357mm. None of the insects in the photos on this page, however, come even close to such a size, but they are still quite sizeable insects, with all of them having a body length of at least 10cm.
Almost all of the 3000 species found worldwide are tropical or subtropical.
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