Stick Insect - Mini-series of insect stories

Here is the second story in my insect mini-series

Stick Insect (Savusavu, Fiji)

You might ask what he was doing climbing a car.

Like all adventurous mountaineers before him, he might answer, ‘Because it was there.’

After all, with compound eyes which allowed him to see well during his largely nocturnal activities, he couldn’t use the excuse that he had mistaken the car for a tree... or could he?

Because, while out foraging, this dedicated herbivore had indeed climbed up a car and was now perched somewhat precariously on the wing mirror. Only he knew why he came to be there, a stick insect enigma, surveying his world from his unusual vantage point. 

Aware of his vulnerability, he rocked gently, mimicking a twig moving in the breeze. In the normal course of events this behaviour might fool predators, but stuck out on the wing mirror in broad daylight meant he was stretching his luck. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the sort of stick insect who could, chameleon-like, change colour to blend in with his surroundings. 

If a predator did approach, he could drop to the ground and play dead, thus fooling the enemy into thinking he was nothing more than an indigestible twig. And if that didn’t work, he could unleash his pièce de résistance and vomit up the contents of his stomach. That should do the trick.