This project is designed to provide a comprehensive archive of information on the systematics and morphology of the insects belonging to the Order Phasmatodea. At first, the systematic portion will consist primarily of the material from my thesis on the West Indian phasmatids [Moxey, 1972], with some additional observations that I made through 1977. With the creation of Battacus, an online journal of phasmatid research, I will formally publish this work (in downloadable pdf and as a CD-ROM) sometime in early 2003. The work will make available some of the new species presented in the thesis, and review research on the Antillean fauna over the last 30 years. As the project progresses, I shall create a catalogue of all described species, ordering them in what I hope will be a reasonable classificational hierarchy. The catalogue will intitially be mostly synonymic, but, as time allows, pages will be added for each taxon containing original and subsequent descriptive materials, as possible. In addition, appropriate links to the Internet publications of others will be provided. In the end, I hope to create an archive of the systematic literature that may be useful to all of us. To fulfill this goal, I may request that visitors, if they have access to literature and illustrations that are not in my collection, make it available for inclusion. In this way, this site can belong to us all. What is my background and why is this important to me? My fascination with phasmatids dates back to high school. For my senior biology project, I wrote a short review of the order, based mostly on Beier’s work in Bronns Klassen und Ordnungen des Tierreichs. In college, though, I studied Coleoptera and was even going to do my thesis on taxonomy of the Lucanidae. But I just could not shake my interest in the stick-insects, so I devoted my efforts to a systematic review of the Phasmatodea of the West Indies. Along the way, I published one short paper [Moxey, 1971], some parts will soon be found in this site. After my doctorate, though, the Fates conspired to send my career along very different paths:  a post-doctoral fellowship in anatomy taught me much that I had not discovered in college or graduate school; to this day, I lecture on anatomy and physiology. For a number of years I served as a cardiac catheterization laboratory technologist and clinical instructor; and now I am involved in medical programming. But, still, every so often, as I do with bonsai, I return with fond affection to the phasmatids, and these pages are my latest homage. cfmoxey, southbridge, massachusetts, usa 21 may 2002