Epidares nolimetangere

thumb|upright|female Epidares nolimetangere, the touch-me-not stick insect, is an insect species from the order of the Phasmatodea and the only representative of the genus Epidares. The species name nolimetangere (originally: noli-me-tangere) comes from Latin and means "don't touch me". It refers to the prickly appearance of the animals.

== Characteristics == Epidares nolimetangere is one of the smaller representatives of the Phasmatodea. The males are about 35 to 43 mm long, the females reach a length of about 45 to 48 mm and have shorter spines than the males. The insects, wingless in both sexes, have a pair of spines on the head and on the anterior margin of the mesonotum and a ring of four spines on the posterior margin of the meso- and metathorax. On the entire abdomen of the males there is only one pair of spines, which can be found on the second abdominal segment. In addition to this, the females also have a pair of spines on the third abdominal segment, which is supplemented by smaller, mostly lateral spines. The females are monochrome dark brown except for a light central stripe. The abdomen of egg-laying females is thickened in the middle. The males show dark areas on the back from the posterior mesothorax, especially in the areas around the spines and on the abdomen. There are other spots on the pronotum and between the lateral and dorsal spines of the meso- and metathorax, the spines themselves being light-colored. On the abdomen, the dark areas flow together to form two parallel longitudinal stripes. These spots can be small or significantly larger or flow together. Their color can be brown to dark green or metallic green. The basic color of the males varies from a light brown on the legs to a bright red, especially on the head, thorax and the top of the abdomen, depending on where they were found. Other location variants are also simply colored light brown between the green spots. Depending on the source, the animals with a more red base color and smaller spots are referred to as a red color form, those with larger, more metallic green spots as a green color form. Ian Abercrombie found another color form, clearly distinguishable from these forms, the males of which he describes as golden. Also Francis Seow-Choen refers to the Bako occurring color form as golden. He calls a second one that occurs in the area around Kuching dark or blue.