We have had a foot long Stick Insect in our front garden for over 5 years. Haven't seen it for a year but my wife called me, she was trimming and luckily noticed the two prongs. I believe it is a female as the males do not get as big. I will see if I can upload a picture. We get some Preying Mantis that are quite large but nowhere near this size. I gave up the use of my hedge trimmer as I would be devastated if I was to kill it. It doesn't seem to mind being touched but does try to hide deeper in the foliage after.

We had a Blue Tongue Lizard as well which are good as they eat the snails but haven't seen that lately. The cats are a problem for the wild life. It is getting colder so the Cockatoos have finished the nuts and the Fruit Bats are not making a mess like they do when it is warmer. They ate most of our Quinces and Mandarins. They do not seem to like Oranges maybe not as sweet.

Shame they don't eat the Red Backs the wet weather we have had has brought on an abundance of the pests. They are your Black Widows. A bite can make one quite sick.

We never get the place sprayed as it is not good for any living thing. Frogs we have a variety I call Bonking Frogs for two reasons one obvious as they are always at it and second they make a bonking sound all night, Annoys the neighbors but I am used to the sound now.

The pleasure of living in an Australian suburb, at least the possums are reasonably quite as long as they don't get in the roof cavity.

A friend of mine had a slow worm living in his garden for many years, one day he cut it in half by mistake with a spade, so it became a pet called Arfa.

Hmm! I bet you had a hedge hog as a pet as a boy, Mine was a real smelly one. I thought there was something wrong with it when I saw it growing another leg, but it was a female and had a couple of babies.

I was in hedge hog heaven. Even beat Conker season. Skate season or maybe Cigarette Card season even Marble season anyway one of them. Do they still have any of those now. that goes back nearly 60 years for me.

http://inkmon.coffeecup.com/storage/Sticky.jpg

Our Stick Insect

Hedge Hog? That is a strange pet. What type of pets do you have now?

A Wife, Two boys, dog and about a dozen goldfish

You might want to delete that first part about the wife being a pet... She got angry because of your avatar, how would she feel if she saw you calling her an animal??? LOL

We have a dog, two Leopard Geckos, and a Bullhead. Had some Ducks until a Raccoon got in to the pen and killed them.
The Bullhead eats Goldfish.

What is a Bullhead?

Catfish I'd guess...

Never heard of them. lol We call them catfish... lol

I have two dogs, and about 5,000,000 ants in my yard...