Hypocyrtus scythrus

order: Phasmatodea
suborder: Areolatae
family: Pseudophasmatidae
subfamily: Xerosomatinae
tribus: Hesperophasmatini
genus: Hypocyrtus (Redtenbacher, 1908)
species: Hypocyrtus scythrus (Westwood, 1859)

origin:

• I have received eggs of H. scythrus in autumn 2006 from Jan Meerman (Belize). They were found in the area of
Belmopan
• species ID by Oskar Conle

general notes:

• At the moment there is another culture stock of this species being bred by European breeders, this second culture
originates from Mexico. So be careful not to mix these two cultures up, as there might be some differences between
the two cultures

females:
• sturdy, slow-moving insects, quite thick when ready to lay eggs pic1 pic2
• small, 7-8 cm long
• wingless
• many females have a protuberance on the dorsal mesothorax, which is often just two small spines, but occassionally
becomes a prominent bump-like protuberance pic1 pic2
• colouration: different shades of brown, with some darker spots
• body is rough-textured, not shining
• antennae a bit longer than the fore legs
• often females have small lobe-like expansions and small spines on the legs
• prothorax is strongly granulated, head and mesothorax are slightly granulated
• many females have a lobe-like expansion on the side of the 7th abdominal segment which can be quite prominent
• a thin appendix of the subgenitalplate often exeeds the terminal abdominal segment
• females start laying eggs some weeks after their final moult, they lay few eggs, about 4 eggs per week

males:
• slim, slow-moving insects pic
• small, 6 cm long
• wingless
• all males have a light brown to almost white spot on each side of the metathorax, close to the joint of the hind legs
pic
• prothorax (dorsally) and head rough-textured, rest of the body quite smooth
• colouration: light brown when as young adults, dark brown when older, with some lighter brown patches. Sides of the
 mesothorax are reddish brown pic
• antennae clearly longer than the fore legs

eggs:
• barrel-shaped, strongly-granulated, dark brown eggs with hair-like structures pic
• 5 mm long, 2 mm broad
• females just leg them drop to the ground

breeding notes:
• this is a medium difficult species
• incubation on damp sand, with springtails to prevent growth of mould
• incubation at room temperatures (18-22 °C) takes 4-5 months
• nymphs feed easily on bramble, cut edges of leaves for newly hatched nymphs
• keep nymphs and adults at a quite high humidity, yet provide their cage with sufficiant air ventilation
• I do never spray the nymphs nor the adults, a damp paper towel (which is regularely replaced) keeps the humidity
high enough
• this is a quite slow growing species, males mature after about 5 months, while females mature after about 7-8
months
• they do not require a big cage, nor do they have moulting problems in even quite a crowded cage
• as it is a slow-moving species, they do not eat a lot

If you have any questions then do not hesitat to contact me - I will try my best to help
And I would be happy to hear from you about your experiences

Bruno Kneubühler (Switzerland)

gopala@bluewin.ch
phasmid@bluewin.ch
http://www.phasmatodea.blogspot.com