I woke up in the middle of the night…in quite the panic. It felt like there were tiny claws pinching into my forearm…the thought occurred to me perhaps it was a huge spider. After hitting my arm and swiping the sheets I woke up Clayton so he could make sure the coast was clear. Clayton turned on the lights and looked on my side of the bed for any misshapen spiders. Telling me the coast was clear I relaxed and looked over to where I thought the creature would be.
It was still there.
Ace Ventura had missed the very large and long stick insect that was clinging onto the side of the mattress. To be fair I didn’t know at the time it was a stick insect, as they are docile and harmless. I just saw a huge weird looking insect. I may have flipped my lid a bit…and shrieked at Clayton to get rid of the insect. I thought it was understood that “get rid of it” means irreversibly destroy. Suggestions include flushing down the toilet, crushing until all that remains is a smear…you know. Destroy.
I was left very unsettled wondering where the mysterious creature came from, how it ended up crawling on my arm while sleeping, and whether there would more.
In the morning after much contemplation, I decided that the creature from the night before must have been a weta which I had seen once on a screen door. Disgusting creature.
Turns out it was a stick insect. How did I find out? Well, apparently when I asked Clayton to get rid of the insect, he took that to mean don’t kill the insect and throw it into the garbage can….alive. So as I was making lunch the next day, and I went to throw something in the garbage….the stick insect popped out of the top of the garbage can as soon as I opened the lid.
Stick Insect
Long story short…..we freed a somewhat maimed (1 broken leg) stick insect back to its environment on the tree outside the front door.
Stick Insect in Tree