The Phasmid Study Group CHAIRMAN: Judith Marshall. Dept. of Entomology, The Natural History Museum. Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD. (Tel: 0171 938 9344 ; FAX 0171 938 8937) TREASURER/MEMBERSHIP: Paul Brock. "Papillon", 40 Thorndlke Road, Slough, Berks. SL2 1SR. (Tel: 01753 579447) SECRETARY: Phil Bragg. 51 Longfield Lane, Ilkeston, Derbyshire, DE7 4DX. (Tel: 0115 9305010) DECEMBER 1997 NEWSLETTER No 73 ISSN 0268-3806 rVJlRrlY CHRISTMAS arid A HAPPY NEW YIAR TO ALL MiWiglRS Arelaon asperhmus by Daniel Hallett 73:2 DIARY DATES 1998 JANUARY 24th. THE PHASMJD STUDY GROUP A.G.M The Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London. (See below and separate sheet for more details) MARCH 22nd MIDLANDS ENTOMOLOGICAL FAIR The Kettering Leisure Village Arena MARCH 21st & 22nd. YORKSHIRE AQUARISTS FESTIVAL Doncaster Racecourse. (Please contact Phil Bragg for more information, and if you can help at this two day event) MARCH 28th. CAPTIVE CONSERVATION OF ENDANGERED INVERTEBRATES, Conference. The Meeting Room, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London. (See further in Newsletter for more details) MAY 17th BRITISH TARANTULA SOCIETY SHOW 1030 - 1700 hrs Wood Green High School, Wood Green Road, Wednesbury, West Midlands. DECEMBER 6th MIDLANDS ENTOMOLOGICAL FAIR The Kettering Leisure Village Arena The Phasmid Study Group has been invited to exhibit at all the above Shows. If you would like to help run our stand, please contact the member named or Paul Jennings at 89 Brackensdale Avenue, Derby, DE22 4AF. (: 01332 343477. If members are willing to run a stand at shows not mentioned here, please contact the Editor with dates, or if you have missed a Newsletter, a write up of how you got on. If you require Membership Forms these are available from the Editor. SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscriptions are due for renewal on January 1st 1998. To ensure that you continue to receive . Newsletters, please send your renewal form (enclosed with this Newsletter), to the Membership Secretary. Paul Brock, as soon as possible. Members should note that failure to re-new on time may mean that Newsletters may arrive late. T - Shirts. Unfortunately we have sold out of Medium T - Shirts in the design of Heteropteryx dilatata. There are still other sizes available in this design, and all sizes available in other designs. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause. 73:3 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 24th JANUARY 1998 THE PALAEONTOLOGY DEMONSTRATION ROOM, THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON. Please see separate sheet for Agenda The Museum is easily reached by Tube train, the nearest station being South Kensington which is on the Piccadilly, Circle & District Lines. A walkway connects the tube station directly to the Museum. Members should make sure that they bring along the enclosed Agenda form in order that they can gain access to the Museum. You will be asked to sign in, and then instructed on how to reach The Palaeontology Demonstration Room. Upon reaching the room, members will be welcomed by a committee member. Members will be issued with a name badge (Sorry, you'll have to write your own names on, but there will be a pen handy). New members who have never attended a meeting before will also have a coloured sticker put on their name badge. As well as the Livestock Exchange, which is run by Ian Abercrombie, and is always very popular, "T - Shirts" and all other PSG merchandise will be on sale. A presentation will be given by Erich Tilgner on the results of his thesis research on the morphology of Timema cristinae. The afternoon will conclude with a further informal gathering. If any member wishes to be nominated or to stand on the committee, please write to the Chairman, Judith Marshall to reach her by Monday 12th of January. We look forward to seeing all Members at the AGM FXHTRTTTONS & MEETINGS REPORT AES Exhibition October 4th 1997 - Paul Taylor. The venue was the same (Kempton Park Racecourse), but the building was different. The AES had the privilege of being one of the first Exhibitions to use the "new" building, and what a fantastic difference. There was plenty of room, it was light and airy, and warm!. All the exhibits looked so much better, and everybody I spoke to agreed on the improvement. The AES organisers certainly made a brilliant job of putting an exhibition on, especially as they had no idea of what room would be available right up to a few days before the show. Our stand seems to grow at each exhibition, the PSG, the Mantid Group and the Cockroach Group, all having stands which, being joined together, certainly made an impressive show. As is usual, we were kept busy all day. Thanks must go to all those members who came and helped out during the day, names too numerous to mention. 73:4 Terrestrial Invertebrate Taxon Advisory Group CAPTIVE CONSERVATION of ENDANGERED INVERTEBRATES. CONFERENCE Saturday, 28th March 1998 The Meeting Room, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London, NW1 4RY. A PRELIMINARY NOTICE AND CALL FOR PAPERS With the ever increasing list of endangered invertebrates. The Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Ireland has set up a Working Group called The Terrestrial Invertebrate Taxon Advisory Group (TITAG) to co-ordinate its work on conservation However there is far more work than can be done by Zoos alone and it is inevitable that other groups, including amateur entomologists will become increasingly involved With this in mind TIT AG is organising a conference on Saturday. 28th March 1998 to discuss problems of invertebrate culture, conservation and specific recovery projects. Provisional arrangements include longer talks on general subjects in the morning (Habitat, conservation. Veterinary subject, etc.) and shorter talks in the afternoon on specific species or groups of animals. Full details of the conference will be available early in the New Year and anyone interested should send a stamped addressed A4 envelope to the address below. Anyone who feels that they have an area of expertise that they would like to offer to the Conference should also contact that address. Adrian D. Durkin, Dudley and West Midlands Zoological Society. 2 The Broadway, Dudley, West Midlands. DY1 4QB. September 1997 Ideas for future meetings Richard Winter I have been a member for a few years now, and the one thing that does disappoint me is that there are so few speakers at meetings, and few practical articles and species reports in the newsletters. I think that the main reason for problems finding speakers at the meetings is that people quite understandably don't feel confident or capable enough to speak to a fairly large audience over a set period. Also people may feel, myself included, that they do not have a wide enough knowledge of a subject to conduct a whole talk themselves. However each person's individual observations and experiences are very valuable and it seems a shame not to take better advantage of this collective knowledge. One way to do this may be to hold discussions at meetings This would give us all a chance to share our thoughts and the results of the discussion could be written up as an interesting article in the newsletter, for the benefit of those not able to attend the meeting. Topics for discussion could be about aspects of general breeding techniques, experiences looking for phasmids in the wild or focus on the care of particular types of phasmids such as leaf insects. Perhaps some species reports could also be compiled in this way. I think that the cage workshop was a step in this direction and proved to be a successful and informative event. 73:5 With species reports, again, I think the problem is that people feel that they don't have the knowledge or experience to write a full report themselves. Someone may simply feel that they couldn't write a report because they can't draw stick insects. By asking people to write in with anything they knew about a particular species or by having a discussion about it in a meeting we might be able to get many more reports. Breeding - Notes on Sungaya inexpectata. Zompro 1996 Oliver Zompro Sungaya inexpectata is a member of the Heteropterygidae: Obriminae. Culture-stock originates from the Philippine island Luzon. There this species was found near the Lake Taal in a very small area of some remaining rain forest A whole week of investigation around the lake for more specimens than the two which had been caught before was unsuccessful, and they were not found in other areas of Luzon. So this species might be called endangered. Only one specimen survived, and layed four eggs. From these eggs two specimens were reared to adult, and the second generation has already resulted in 60 specimens. Since September 1997, the third generation is hatching well, with several hundred young ones, and several cultures are already established. This species on first seeing looks similar to Aretaon, but is lighter in colour and less spiny. The culture is parthenogenetic S. inexpectata needs high humidity and prefers bramble to guava. The second generation laid up to 15 eggs every two weeks. They were buried in a hole in the substrate The next generation started to lose this behaviour and laid single eggs every few days. The young ones hatch after 4 months of incubation and grow up within 3 months. Older nymphs and adults like to hide behind some pieces of wood in the daytime. A new expedition to the Philippines will try to find a male of this interesting species. This species is still not on the PSG list. Stick Insects in Zakynthos, Greece.