23/11/2025
Do we have more than One Stick Insect from New Zealand hidden in Kerry?
This is a nymph of a New Zealand stick insect Acanthoxyla inermis aka "unarmed stick insect" that was photographed by Beineón O'Shea O'Neill in South Kerry at the end of summer 2025. Beineón was given the task by Invertebrates Of Ireland to find and photo a Stick Insect a few years ago and thankfully he did found them. I asked him to find an adult and he said it might take him another 2 years as they are very hard to find, unless your lucky enough to see them on the wall or pourch of a house.
Stick Insects have were first recorded in Ireland (Kerry and Cork area) in the 1960s. It was thought that because Irish classrooms kept the Indian stick insect "Carausius morosus" as a pet for a few decades that our outdoor stick insects were simply escapees from those tanks. But its come to light that Carausius morosus cannot survive our outside climate.
The stick insects you meet here have become naturalised in the mild, moist climate of Kerry and Cork. They arrived in Ireland likely by their eggs hitching a ride in the soil of imported plants. Once here, they found bramble hedges and mild coastal winters to their liking.
Acanthoxyla reproduces parthenogenetically, without males. Each female lays fertile eggs that hatch into clones of herself. Globally, males were unknown in this genus until 2016, when a rare mutant male was discovered in Cornwall in Britain, to the astonishment of entomologists everywhere. Ireland’s colonies remain exclusively female, a sisterhood, continuing their lineage by cloning themselves.
Photos of Nymh courtesy of Beineón O'Shea O'Neill in September 2025 near Bonane Kenmare Kerry.
Photo of Adult (Pretty sure its a Prickly Stick Insect "Acanthoxyla geisovii" not a unarmed stick insect "Acanthoxyla inermis" like described in the Article) courtesy of Irish Times taken by Sheena Dolan in September 2025, discovered on holidays in Tuosist near Kenmare. https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/2025/09/13/this-female-only-stick-insect-arrived-in-ireland-from-new-zealand-in-the-1960s/
So perhaps two species of New Zealand stick insects have now become naturalised in Ireland. The Unarmed Stick insect "Acanthoxyla inermis" which became naturalised in the United Kingdom since the 1920s and the Prickly Stick-insect "Acanthoxyla geisovii" which became naturalised in the United Kingdom since Edwardian times.
Both have been photographed in Kerry September 2025.
