Discovered the world's first hermaphroditic green bean stick beetle

Charlie is the world's first hermaphrodite specimen.

Named Charlie, the green bean stick beetle (Diapherodes gigantea) is the first hermaphrodite in this species, according to experts at the Natural History Museum. It molts at its owner's home in Suffolk, revealing the female's bright green body and the male's brown wings. Charlie is considered a particularly impressive specimen. Charlie's owner, Lauren Garfield, donated it to the London Museum for scientific research. However, the animal will be euthanized for future research, because if it dies naturally, it will dry out and lose color.

According to Garfield, at first Charlie looked like other stick bugs that she kept and bred at home. But when it molted, people began to notice its strange shape. The male stick beetle has a body length of 9 - 13 cm while the female stick beetle is 14 - 18 cm long. After taking pictures, she sent Charlie to the museum so that insect experts could examine them more closely.

"Garfield's specimen has the male's large brown body on the right side with a complete hind wing. The left side is not as large as the adult female but is wider than the common male and is bright green. In individual Hermaphrodites like this stick beetle, the genitals are not fully formed, so even though it looks like a male, it cannot mate with a female," explained Paul Brock, an insect expert at the museum.

Stick beetles are native to the three Caribbean islands of St Vincent, Grenada and St Lucia. In the wild, they eat the leaves of trees in the rain forest. In captivity, they feed on thorn bush, eucalyptus or oak leaves. They are relatively easy to keep and can live up to a year in captivity.