Walking Sticks are insects. They have six legs and a chitin exoskeleton. They belong to the Order Orthoptera, which includes not only walking sticks, but also grasshoppers, katydids, crickets, praying mantids, and cockroaches. Walkingsticks belong to the Suborder Phasmatodea, Family Phasmatidea which includes both walkingsticks (which look like sticks) and leaf insects (which look like leaves). I will not deal with leaf insects here but they, too, are interesting insects.

There are several thousand species of Walking Stick insects and many are kept as pets. The ones I had, and describe here, are Indian Stick Insects (Species: Carausius morosus; Pronounced: Ca-rau-si-us mor-o-sus). They are also called the Laboratory Stick Insect because they are easily kept in the laboratory for research experiments. They range in colour from a dark-brown (almost black) to bright green, with the younger stages usually being browner. Walking Sticks take several months (4-6) to grow from a first instar stage, which is about 1 cm long (1/2 inch), to an adult of about 10 cm (4 inches).

They can also mean the non-insect variety, which means mobility support and hiking gear.