Adults mate and lay eggs. It is important to understand life stages because pest controls usually target the damaging or most vulnerable stage of insect development. Timing is also a factor. We know ...

Before the second winter, the larvae reach their final stage but don't pupate. Instead, they enter obligatory diapause, a natural dormancy phase in their life cycle.

Among their victims was the stick insect Dryococelus australis, also known as the Lord Howe Island stick insect. For decades, the stick insect was believed to become extinct around 1920.