Field Notes: Australian Walking Sticks

Hey Deep Peeps! We are Baaack! Our first episode of 2022 on 1/11 is about the Australian walking stick. These sneaky and dazzling creatures don’t have just one trick up their leaves  – they have three! Their eggs look like seeds. Their babies look like red-headed spider ants – and only as adults do they wear into that trademark leafy stick disguise.

An adult female Australian walking stick insect, like the one in the above photo, is a slow-moving vegetarian and can get to be quite large. Adults can grow more than 7 inches in length.  

Red-headed spider ant (Leptomyrmex erythrocephalus) on the left and Australian walking stick (Extatosoma tiaratum) insect nymph on the right. (Photo Credits: Jordan Dean)

Our episode features exciting footage from Australia, but alas, we didn’t travel “Down Under” over the winter break.  Producer Mike Seely (that's his hand in the top photo) collaborated remotely with talented Victoria-based filmmaker Jordan Dean. Luckily, Jordan has years of experience making films about ants in Australia and knew where to find spider ants (see his previous video about them), so he was the ideal person to locate and film them for Deep Look.  

Jordan Dean with his macro lens filming spider ants in the wild. (Photo Credit: Jordan Dean)

After finding the spider ants in the Lerderderg State Park near Melbourne, he acquired some Australian walking stick eggs and nymphs from a local breeder there so that he could set up shots to film the nymphs alongside the ants. This allowed us to directly compare both their looks, and their movements. Jordan also constructed a convincing underground ant nest scene, which really helps show the journey that the stick insect eggs take before hatching.

Jordan Dean gently holds a red-headed spider ant. (Photo Credit: Jordan Dean)

“In past projects when I would film captive ants within their nests, I would rarely try to make it look as though the ants were living within a natural environment. They were shot in obviously artificially constructed ant farms made of brightly colored acrylic and concrete,” says Dean. “So, for this project, my solution was to house the ants within a small acrylic container which I had the freedom to light and shoot from multiple angles. By slightly dampening some substrate, I was able to construct tunnels and chambers. To emulate the ceilings, several pieces of bark were adhered to the outside of the enclosure. This gave the appearance as though you had sliced through the earth and were peeking into the ants’ cozy underground home.”

Jordan Dean’s ant nest filming setup. (Photo credit: Jordan Dean)

The resulting underground ant nest shots showing the seed-foraging ants with an Australian stick insect egg, and a real seed for comparison. (Photo credit: Jordan Dean)

To complete the video, Deep Look cinematographer Josh Cassidy filmed adult Australian walking sticks (and some of the nymph scenes) in captivity at the San Francisco Zoo and at UC Berkeley’s Essig Museum of Entomology.

Deep Look’s Josh Cassidy with studio setup, filming Australian walking sticks at the San Francisco Zoo. (Photo Credit: Mike Seely/KQED)

For more information about Jordan Dean and to watch Jordan's highly informative films about ants and other Australian wildlife, go to his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCriN7rN7wRo4w93jOR-055A.

This episode premieres next Tuesday, January 11, but Patreon supporters will get a sneak peek this Friday!