Been a while since my last post. Just thought I would do another short species profile.
This is Peruphasma schultei, probably one of the more common stick insects in the hobby, but also most certainly one of the most beautiful!
Despite being so common in the hobby, their natural habitat is limited to an area approximately the size of only 10 rugby/soccer fields. That may sound big, but that is minuscule compared to other species.
My culture consists of both the normal red-winged variety as well as the rarer pink wing morph, which is a recessive gene and acts just like the albino gene would in other animals. So if a pink winged animal would mate with a red winged animals, the resulting ova would all be red winged (heterozygous for the pink wing morph). And if a pink wing is bred to a pink wing, all resulting nymphs would be pink winged (simpler than it sounds).
I am currently keeping both varieties together, but I will separate them as they mature.
I am currently feeding them on Olive leaves. Strangely enough, their native foodplants of pepper trees of the genus Schinus. I supplied two different species of Schinus as well as the Olive leaves to the first instar nymphs and they did not even touch the papper leaves. Weird!
These phasmids actually prefer the enclosure slightly drier than other species, so although I spray them on the same regime as the other, I just spray a lot less.
Hope you enjoyed this short summary of Peruphasma schultei!
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