Peppermint Stick Insect

Taken January 2008 along the Dubuji Boardwalk, Cape Tribulation

It’s easy to walk past a Peppermint Stick Insect Megacrania batesii with even realising it’s there (“there” being only a couple of locations, several hundred kms apart, in Far North Queensland). Look carefully on the leaves screwpine Pandanus tectorius along the Dubuji Boardwalk at Cape Tribulation and you might be lucky enough to spot one enjoying a feed. When provoked, they squirt a sticky milky substance that smells like peppermint at whatever is threatening them. Hopefully it’s not your camera or your eye!