Asteliaphasma Jewell and Brock

This genus is found throughout the upper half of the North Island, including some offshore island, in native forest. It is most easily found on climbing rata. There are two described species:

Asteliaphasma naomi (Salmon 1991)
Asteliaphasma jucundum (Salmon 1991)

Individuals of Asteliaphasma can be up to 9 cm long and tend to be very gracile with thin legs. Some individuals have prominent lobes on the legs and abdomen. Like the genus Spinotectarchus, the eggs of Asteliaphasma are covered in spines. For this reason these species used to be included in the same genus, however their terminalia are quite different and so were separated by Jewell and Brock (2002). The current species descriptions do not allow reliable identification of the two Asteliaphasma species and the exact number of valid species is not apparent. Because these stick insects are very poorly represented in collection we are undertaking a survey of upper North Island forests to determine the range of genetic and morphological variation. These data will be used to determine exactly how many species of Asteliaphasma there are.