For (a): All the studied species diverged a long time ago and went through numerous changes during their evolutionary history, involving repeat amplifications leading to C-positive regions and elimination of amplified repeats as well. In all the species we studied, C-positive regions were present in pericentric, telomeric, and interstitial positions of different chromosomes; the only exception was S. inexpectata, where no C-bands could be visualized in the termini of long chromosome arms. Also, in all the species studied here, at least one chromosome pair had a large C-banding positive region. Thus, overall, there are common features in C-band patterns in the stick insects we studied.