Margin Winged Stick Insect nymphal female (Ctenomorpha marginipennis)

This is the penultimate nymph and the most common stick insect throughout most of Victoria.
She will develop tiny wings during her final moult but they are too small for flight.

comments (7)

Martin Lagerwey

Lion

The ID search synonymized this species with Ctenomorphodes chronus which is incorrect.
Ctenomorphodes is now Anchiale http://bie.ala.org.au/search?q=Ctenomorphodes+chronus
Ctenomorpha is unmistakable by the massive cerci.
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:biodiversity.org.au:afd.taxon:a70c2c72-77e1-4a0a-9261-3da6d55a39fe#
Posted 9 years ago
1. Ferdy Christant
  
  Lion
  
  What an awesome species. Please check if I identified it correctly now? Posted 9 years ago
2. 1. Martin Lagerwey
    
    Lion
    
    The name is correct but the description is of C. chronius. Synonymy notwithstanding, I think it is describing a different insect.
    The Wiki page seems to be very clumsy and even mentions pupae instead of nymphs. I think it has had several contributing authors over time and it needs to be rewritten.
    I wrote some Wiki pages for leaf beetles but this is not my field. Posted 9 years ago, modified 9 years ago
  2. 1. Ferdy Christant
      
      Lion
      
      Ok, for now I cleared everything from the species record except for the name and taxonomy. Posted 9 years ago

Ferdy Christant

Lion

Doing some species maintenance but I'm still confused:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctenomorphodes_chronus

Title says "Ctenomorphodes chronus" and then immediately continues with "Ctenomorpha marginipennis", and then in the species block it says "Ctenomorphoda marginipennis". That's 3 different species names in the same article and I don't know which one is right. I also don't know if I remapped your photo to the correct one, can you please let me know? Posted 6 years ago
1. Albert Kang
  
  Lion
  
  Ferdy,
  
  Ctenomorpha marginipennis (Gray, 1833) is the valid species name.
  There are 6 synonym to this species :
  
  - synonym chronus (Gray, 1833)
  - synonym macrotegmus (Tepper, 1887)
  - synonym oxyacantha (Redtenbacher, 1908)
  - synonym phyllocerca (Redtenbacher, 1908)
  - synonym scutigera (Redtenbacher, 1908)
  - synonym tasmaniensis (Lea, 1902)
  
  showing you the name of authors with the year of descriptions to show that they were described after Ctenomorpha marginipennis (Gray, 1833), so that means Ctenomorpha marginipennis should be the species name to be used.
  
  Ctenomorphoda is not a valid species name, which probably was wrongly spelled from Ctenomorphodes.
  The genus Ctenomorphodes is a synonym of the genus Anchiale.
  
  Can be confusing when genus/names are quite similar in name/spelling and with synonyms. Posted 5 years ago
2. 1. Ferdy Christant
    
    Lion
    
    Thanks so much, Albert, species name corrected. Posted 5 years ago