Sentosa's Butterfly Park opened in 1987, and featured a walk-in butterfly sanctuary with over 1,000 butterflies. There was also an insect house with live grasshoppers, tarantulas and stick insects, to name a few.

It was called the World Insectarium.

In 1989, the world's first bisexual stick insect was discovered at Sentosa's Butterfly Park.

While "bisexual" commonly refers to people who are attracted to both men and women, the stick insect was known to be bisexual because it had both male and female features.

Male and female stick insects

The scientific name of the stick insect is Heteropteryx dilatata, but it is also known as the jungle nymph.

The male is brown and stick-like, with front wings enabling it to fly. It can grow up to 10cm.

The female, however, is green. It is 5 to 10 times larger than the male. It also has hardened wings and cannot fly.

Instead, it has strong front legs to support the body.

By 1989, Sentosa's butterfly park had already collected and bred about 10,000 stick insects.

This one was particularly rare because it had 40% male features and 60% female features. It was green on the left, female side, and brown on the right, male side.

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Death by bisexuality

The bisexual stick insect was hatched and reared in January 1989.

A normal stick insect has a lifespan of about 2 to 3 years. However, this one died seven months after hatching.

Because male and female stick insects grow to different sizes, the male half of the bisexual stick insect had stopped growing while the female half continued. This resulted in its body being distorted into a U-shape.

According to the Straits Times, "the insect died because it could not bear the agony of being so badly curved".

Because of its rarity and popularity with visitors, it was preserved and displayed as an attraction after its death.

More bisexual insects?

The fascination with bisexual insects did not stop at the stick insect.

In 1991, the ST reported on a bisexual Archduke butterfly in a butterfly farm in Teluk Bahang, Penang.

Later in 2003, a bisexual butterfly was successfully cultivated in Sentosa's Butterfly Park. It was a Papilio Memnon with both female and male parts.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="588"] Papilio Memnon. Source: Wikipedia[/caption]

Top photo from Newspaper SG & photo by Terence Ong via Wikimedia.