Walking stick visitor

Some visitors come to talk, some to eat, some just come to Preston Forest  to hang around, as was the case this week with a large and strange bug perched by Bill's workshop door.  "Get your camera!  You gotta see this thing!" said Bill.  A good carpenter always measures so he came to the photo shoot with tape in hand to show just how big this dude was.  For 10 minutes we closely examined him from inches away and he never so much as twitched.  His quarter-inch, squid-looking face was armed with antennae about three inches long; his jointed legs bent at strong angles. A search of walking sticks on the web revealed his Borneo cousins can grow to 13 inches long so ours proved to be a lightweight in the world of phasmida. Most fascinating detail--females don't need the males to reproduce so totally female colonies are sometimes found.  As we were checking him out so closely it would have been nice to know he (she?) is capable of shooting poison that causes blindness in his enemies!