These amazing animals are female JUNGLE NYMPHS from the lush rainforests of West Malaysia. Female jungle nymphs are among the heaviest insects in the world, reaching 50 grammes or so, and are some of the most strikingly beautiful animals I keep in my collection. The normal colouration of adult females is bright lime green like the individuals in these pictures:

If a jungle nymph feels threatened it has the most amazing defensive technique. They have incredibly sharp spines on many parts of their bodies as you can see in the pictures above, with the largest of these being on the rear legs as you can see here:

If a jungle nymph feels threatened it will stand on its front two pairs of legs and raise its rear legs into the air. It will then kick the rear legs together in a very fast scissor-like action and anything in the way will get a large number of very sharp leg spines stabbing into it! The speed and power with which they can do this is quite amazing and any bird or other animal which attacks a jungle nymph is sure to think twice about ever doing it again once they have had their face damaged by the puncture wounds caused by these needle-sharp spines!

Whilst the normal colouration of adult females is this fantastic lime green, they do occasionally turn a beautiful yellow colour when they reach maturity like the ones in the pictures below.

When you see females of the two colours together it is very clear that they look quite different, but equally beautiful in my opinion!

Adult male jungle nymphs, like the two pictured below, are quite a bit smaller than females and mainly shades of brown in colour, quite different to the beautiful lime green of the females. They have fully developed wings and can fly, whereas females are much too heavy!

During their development male jungle nymphs can have very variable colouration and pattern and often look absolutely stunning, like the ones in the pictures below!