Stick Insects Digest Plants With Enzymes Previously Unknown In Animals

Plants and Animals





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Young Australian stick insect (Extatosoma tiaratum) hanging upside-down. Matan Shelomi/Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology

For decades, researchers thought that wood-feeding insects relied entirely on their helpful microbes to break down the tough cell walls of plants. Recently, cellulase, an enzyme that digests the cell wall polymer cellulose, was discovered in stick insects themselves. Now, according to a new Insect Biochemistry & Molecular Biology study, walking sticks in the order Phasmatodea produce cellulases that can take down several types of cell wall polymers equally.