Metabolic characteristics of a giant jumping stick Stiphra sp. (Orthoptera: Proscopiidae) from Peru
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Caranci, A., S. Madigosky, and I. Vatnick. 2006. Metabolic characteristics of a giant jumping stick Stiphra sp. (Orthoptera: Proscopiidae) from Peru. Pages 105–112 in Proceedings of the 14th Annual Invertebrates in Captivity Conference. Rio Rico, AZ.
Abstract: Jumping sticks (Stiphra sp.) undergo dramatic anatomical and metabolic changes in the course of their development. To document such, we examined the metabolic characteristics of eggs and all successive instar stages in females. As expected, specific metabolic rates declined with each progressive instar stage and with increasing body mass. The range of metabolic activity varied from 0.921 ml O2/gm/hr at the first instar stage to 0.378ml O2/mg/hr in adult females. Metabolic rates of adult females were similar to those of other species of stick insects reported and fit nicely with the predicted values obtained from digestive studies. Additionally, we determined changes in metabolism as a function of increasing environmental temperature and report a Q10 value for Stiphra sp. of 1.77. Lastly, we compare our results to previously published work that characterizes insect metabolic rates using allometric equations as a function of body mass. Our results indicate that this equation overestimates overall energy expenditure and metabolic rates.