These amazing animals are female JUNGLE NYMPHS from the lush rainforests of West Malaysia.  Female jungle nymphs are among the heaviest insects in the world, reaching 50 grammes or so, and are some of the most strikingly beautiful animals I keep in my collection. The normal colouration of adult females is bright lime green like the one in these first two pictures below:

However, when they reach maturity they occasionally turn a beautiful yellow colour like the one in the pictures below, the first yellow one ever in my own personal collection.  My thanks go to five year-old Jenna in the reception class at Chiseldon Primary School for thinking of the perfect name 'Buttercup' for her.  I had asked children in many schools if they could think of a good name but until Jenna's great idea none of the other suggestions had quite suited her colour or beauty!

When you see females of the two colours together it is very clear that they look quite different, but equally beautiful in my opinion!

If a jungle nymph feels threatened it has the most amazing defensive technique.  As shown in the picture below, it will stand on its front two pairs of legs and raise its back legs into the air.  It will then kick the back legs together in a very fast scissor-like action and anything in the way will get a large number of very sharp leg spines stabbing into it!  The speed and power with which they can do this is quite amazing and any bird or other animal which attacks a jungle nymph is sure to think twice about ever doing it again once they have had their face damaged by the puncture wounds caused by these needle-sharp spines! 

Adult male jungle nymphs, like the one pictured below, are quite a bit smaller than females and brownish in colour, quite different to the beautiful lime green of the females.  They have fully developed wings and can fly, whereas females are much too heavy!

During their development male jungle nymphs can have very variable colouration and pattern and often look stunning, like the one in the picture below which had a fantastic pattern of brown and white:

Female jungle nymphs lay  relatively large ova (eggs), as pictured below.  These ova can take between a year and eighteen months to hatch, which is a long time to wait as I'm sure you'll agree! 

The nymphs (babies) are quite large compared to other baby stick insects as the eggs are among the largest stick insect eggs in the world, and they are also very cute and a nice pinkish colour to start off with as you can see below.

Jungle nymphs, like all stick insects and many other invertebrates, must regularly moult off their old exoskeleton in order to grow.  Stick insects usually moult whilst hanging upside down, which in the wild would mean hanging from a branch, leaf or other suitable surface.  I keep all of my stick insects in nylon mesh enclosures, the tops of which offer an excellent surface to grip to whilst moulting, as demonstrated by this one below:

The picture above clearly shows that even though the jungle nymph has already pulled all of its legs out of its old exoskeleton, the claws of the empty exoskeleton are strong enough to keep a tight grip on the mesh!  This is because the jungle nymph has made a completely new exoskeleton or body for itself, so the now-empty claws of the old one are left behind along with all the other body parts but remain as sharp and tough as they ever were!

When they have emerged from their old exoskeleton they hang upright for a while to allow their new body to dry out as this one is doing in the picture below, which moulted whilst hanging from a bramble leaf:

You can see in the picture that some of the legs of the old exoskeleton are still in position hanging from the leaf.  After a while there is often no evidence of the old exoskeleton at all, as most stick insects eat it to recover some of the nutrients it contains!

The pictures below demonstrate very well the amazing colour change which can occur when stick insects like jungle nymphs moult as they approach maturity.  These two pictures are of the same female, taken shortly before and soon after she moulted to the first green stage of the jungle nymph's life cycle:

It is clear that the colour change at this stage, and the size increase, is quite amazing!  Inside the old exoskeleton of a stick insect a whole new one is forming.  It is always larger than the old one, and as these pictures demonstrate it can also often be a much different colour as well.  The jungle nymph in the picture above is still not adult and is in fact only at the first of three 'green' stages of the jungle nymph life cycle.  The next time it moults it will look like this 'second green stage' individual below, with larger wing buds and a brighter colour as well as being considerably larger overall: 

If you compare this picture to those of the adult females at the top of this page, you will see that the adults have even larger wings.  These grow and develop inside the wing buds and, when a jungle nymph moults for the final time to maturity, the wings will break free from the bud casing (a little bit like a parachute opening!) before they unfurl, expand and dry out into their large adult shape.  The female in the picture above actually matured into the lovely yellow individual towards the top of the page, which I have to say came as quite a pleasant surprise!