Megacrania is a genus of the subfamily Megacraniinae of stick insects. Members of this genus are commonly referred to as "peppermint stick insects", due to the characteristic odor of their defensive spray, as well as the cylindrical, twig-like shape of their bodies.
Megacrania is a genus of the subfamily Megacraniinae of stick insects. Members of this genus are commonly referred to as "peppermint stick insects", due to the characteristic odor of their defensive spray, as well as the cylindrical, twig-like shape of their bodies.
These unusual insects are notable for their aposematic coloration, as well as their robust chemical defense mechanism. This mechanism consists of an irritating fluid — with an odor resembling peppermint — that they spray from a pair of scent glands located at the prothorax when threatened. This fluid is irritating or painful when inhaled or absorbed through mucous membranes, and is an effective deterrent against many arthropod, reptilian and avian predators.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).