My S-i-L living in St. Austell (a mile or so from the Eden Project)
has had stick insects living wild in her garden for several years.
Apparently they are not uncommon in the area, having also been
reported to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust at Mevagissy, on the coast a
few miles to the south.

Is this unique to mid-Cornwall, or has anyone else got or know of
exotics like this?


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
My S-i-L living in St. Austell (a mile or so from the Eden Project)
has had stick insects living wild in her garden for several years.
Apparently they are not uncommon in the area, having also been
reported to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust at Mevagissy, on the coast a
few miles to the south.

Is this unique to mid-Cornwall, or has anyone else got or know of
exotics like this?

I've read of it before. I think they do OK for a few years but then die off
when there is a hard winter. Been pretty mild over recent winters.

There is a canal somewhere up north, warmed by a power station, that has
tropical fish living in it. Survivors from soemones fishtank dumped in there
so its thought.
--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

The message
from Chris Hogg contains these words:

My S-i-L living in St. Austell (a mile or so from the Eden Project)
has had stick insects living wild in her garden for several years.
Apparently they are not uncommon in the area, having also been
reported to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust at Mevagissy, on the coast a
few miles to the south.

Is this unique to mid-Cornwall, or has anyone else got or know of
exotics like this?

I'd no ideas they could survive outdoors in the UK. Are they the 6" ones?
As a child I used to keep them as pets in a glass tank. They breed
fast, dropping hard eggs (about the size of a peppercorn) randomly as
they judder around. I used to save the eggs to sell at a petshop, a nice
little earner.

While I was staying with my longsuffering aunt in the long school
holidays, my mother promised if I posted the eggs home to her she would
deliver them to the petshop. So I collected them in an open jamjar which
I parked on my aunts top kitchen shelf until there were enough to fill a
large matchbox. How was I to know they would hatch in record time in the
warm damp atmosphere of a busy kitchen? The babies are a lot livelier
and faster than the adults; this is because they hatch on the forest
floor and have to run fast up a tree to find their first meal. One day,
my aunt came down to the kitchen to find there had been a mass hatching
overnight; and a plague of stick-insects had dispersed all around the
kitchen.

It took me weeks to round up all the stragglers.....

Janet

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from Chris Hogg contains these words:

My S-i-L living in St. Austell (a mile or so from the Eden Project)
has had stick insects living wild in her garden for several years.
Apparently they are not uncommon in the area, having also been
reported to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust at Mevagissy, on the coast a
few miles to the south.

Is this unique to mid-Cornwall, or has anyone else got or know of
exotics like this?

I'd no ideas they could survive outdoors in the UK. Are they the 6"
ones?
As a child I used to keep them as pets in a glass tank. They breed
fast, dropping hard eggs (about the size of a peppercorn) randomly as
they judder around. I used to save the eggs to sell at a petshop, a nice
little earner.

While I was staying with my longsuffering aunt in the long school
holidays, my mother promised if I posted the eggs home to her she would
deliver them to the petshop. So I collected them in an open jamjar which
I parked on my aunts top kitchen shelf until there were enough to fill a
large matchbox. How was I to know they would hatch in record time in the
warm damp atmosphere of a busy kitchen? The babies are a lot livelier
and faster than the adults; this is because they hatch on the forest
floor and have to run fast up a tree to find their first meal. One day,
my aunt came down to the kitchen to find there had been a mass hatching
overnight; and a plague of stick-insects had dispersed all around the
kitchen.

It took me weeks to round up all the stragglers.....

Janet


not all, I expect some got to Cornwall!

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

The message
from "Tumbleweed" contains these words:
"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
My S-i-L living in St. Austell (a mile or so from the Eden Project)
has had stick insects living wild in her garden for several years.
Apparently they are not uncommon in the area, having also been
reported to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust at Mevagissy, on the coast a
few miles to the south.

Is this unique to mid-Cornwall, or has anyone else got or know of
exotics like this?

I've read of it before. I think they do OK for a few years but then die off
when there is a hard winter. Been pretty mild over recent winters.

There is a canal somewhere up north, warmed by a power station, that has
tropical fish living in it. Survivors from soemones fishtank dumped in
there
so its thought.

And I think it's Epping Station which has a (protected) population of a
small species of European scorpions.

--
Rusty
Emus to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

On 29/7/05 20:52, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:
snip
One day,
my aunt came down to the kitchen to find there had been a mass hatching
overnight; and a plague of stick-insects had dispersed all around the
kitchen.

It took me weeks to round up all the stragglers.....


That sounds like something straight out of My Family and Other Animals!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

The message k
from Sacha contains these words:

On 29/7/05 20:52, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:
snip
One day,
my aunt came down to the kitchen to find there had been a mass hatching
overnight; and a plague of stick-insects had dispersed all around the
kitchen.

It took me weeks to round up all the stragglers.....


That sounds like something straight out of My Family and Other Animals!

LOL. You sow what you reap..the same Aunt had given me that book
shortly before.Our family life was very similar. I was immediately
inspired to go to Corfu which sounded infinitely more alluring than
industrial Lancashire; and got there in the early 60's. His locations
and wildlife were just as Durrel described..it's sadly changed since
package tourism arrived.

On 30/7/05 12:41, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:

The message k
from Sacha contains these words:

On 29/7/05 20:52, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:
snip
One day,
my aunt came down to the kitchen to find there had been a mass hatching
overnight; and a plague of stick-insects had dispersed all around the
kitchen.

It took me weeks to round up all the stragglers.....


That sounds like something straight out of My Family and Other Animals!

LOL. You sow what you reap..the same Aunt had given me that book
shortly before.Our family life was very similar. I was immediately
inspired to go to Corfu which sounded infinitely more alluring than
industrial Lancashire; and got there in the early 60's. His locations
and wildlife were just as Durrel described..it's sadly changed since
package tourism arrived.

I don't get there until the late 70s by which time it had changed horribly.
I disliked it intensely and have never wanted to return. One or two Greek
islands - Rhodes is one, IMO - seem to act as sacrifical anodes to the rest,
which remain delightful.
But I loved Durrell's books, one of which he dedicated to my outlaws who had
helped him start the Jersey Zoo. Sadly, I never met him while they knew him
(there was a falling out over Zoo policy) but they still spoke of him with
great warmth and affection and my ex and his siblings each had one of GD's
own sketches of animals in the zoo.
I still weep with laughter when I read his account of the scorpions in the
matchbox!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

The message k
from Sacha contains these words:
On 29/7/05 20:52, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:
snip
One day,
my aunt came down to the kitchen to find there had been a mass hatching
overnight; and a plague of stick-insects had dispersed all around the
kitchen.

It took me weeks to round up all the stragglers.....

That sounds like something straight out of My Family and Other Animals!

Unforgets me of when I bought a pair of grass snakes from the local pet shop.

One escaped behind the sideboard when i was doing my homework
(allegedly), and being a solid piece of solid hardwood furniture from
late Victoriana, full of cutlery, crockery, glass and piles of other
tqt, I was unable to move it.

I expected that it would emerge at some stage, but even though I spent a
suspicious time doing 'homework', it failed to show.

During the summer holidays some months later, my mother (a
physioterrorist in private practice) sought me out and told me that
there was a snake in her treatment room, would I come and catch it?

Feigning surprise I attended with alacrity, and a big pile of wood-wool
packaging in which some new equipment had arrived was pointed out -
apparantly, a patient had seen one of its cables move...

Guessing its provenance, I fearlessly delved amongst the shavings and
brought out my missing pet, announcing: "Grass snake. Oh good! A mate
for the one I've got..."

Even then, I knew when to keep mum.

--
Rusty
Emus to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

Tumbleweed wrote:
:: "Chris Hogg" wrote in message
:: ...
::: My S-i-L living in St. Austell (a mile or so from the Eden Project)
::: has had stick insects living wild in her garden for several years.
::: Apparently they are not uncommon in the area, having also been
::: reported to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust at Mevagissy, on the coast a
::: few miles to the south.
:::
::: Is this unique to mid-Cornwall, or has anyone else got or know of
::: exotics like this?
::
:: I've read of it before. I think they do OK for a few years but then die
:: off when there is a hard winter. Been pretty mild over recent winters.
::
:: There is a canal somewhere up north, warmed by a power station, that has
:: tropical fish living in it. Survivors from soemones fishtank dumped in
:: there so its thought.

The canal is the Sankey canal in my hometown St Helens, it's disused and is
sealed off from the rest of the canal network.
Pilkingtons, the glass manufacturers pump water out for cooling the tanks
and pump it back in hot, it's known locally as 'The Hotties'.
For some reason they stopped using the water a few years ago and all the
tropical fish disappeared, but prior to this it was thick with neons (inch
long transparent fish with a red stripe and blue belly)...you could walk
along the edge with a kids net and get a hundred at a time, it also
contained cichlids, black mollies, swordtails and half a dozen other
tropical fish.

We used to swim in it as kids, even though it was full of supermarket
trolleys, old tyres and broken prams....in recent years it has been cleaned
up and is now a beauty spot and is fished by the local angling association.

--
If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs.

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:52:51 +0100, Janet Baraclough
wrote:

The message
from Chris Hogg contains these words:

My S-i-L living in St. Austell (a mile or so from the Eden Project)
has had stick insects living wild in her garden for several years.
Apparently they are not uncommon in the area, having also been
reported to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust at Mevagissy, on the coast a
few miles to the south.

Is this unique to mid-Cornwall, or has anyone else got or know of
exotics like this?

I'd no ideas they could survive outdoors in the UK. Are they the 6" ones?

I've not seen them myself, but from the pictures she's taken yes,
they're about 6" long and green.

Apparently there are three species of stick insect established in the
Scilly Isles and in warmer parts of the mainland: the 'Prickly Stick
Insect' (Acanthoxyla prasina), the 'Unarmed Stick Insect' (Acanthoxyla
inermis) and the 'Smooth Stick Insect' (Clitarcus hookeri). All come
from New Zealand and probably originally came in on imported plants.
The man from the Cornwall Wildlife Trust identified them as the
Unarmed type.

For more info, see http://www.erccis.co.uk/species/stickinsects.htm




--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net