In addition, the colors can fade significantly in the course of life, and older females in particular often appear as if they were covered with a layer of lime.

A more or less characteristic pattern consisting of these greenish, dark brown and beige to pale yellow areas can often be found on the thorax.

A light, almost yellow stripe on the meso- and metanotum that narrows slightly from front to back forms a striking contrast to the dark brown basic color.

In the habitus both sexes correspond to the sexual dimorphism typical of the tribe Obrimini, in which the 5.0 to 6.0 centimetres (2.0 to 2.4 in) long males have a relatively slender abdomen with thicker end segments and the larger females with a length of 8.0 to 9.0 centimetres (3.1 to 3.5 in) have a wider abdomen, which swells significantly during the period of egg laying and ends in a pointed, secondary ovipositor.

Four to five weeks after the last moult, the females begin to lay an average of one to a maximum of two cylindrical eggs a day with the ovipositor in the soil.

Macroscopically, they can be distinguished from the eggs of Trachyaretaon carmelae by the arm of the micropylar plate that widens towards the lid (operculum).

This is an adaptation that can also be found in other representatives of tribe Obrimini and takes into account the softer exoskeleton of the nymphs.

[2] The specific name "asperrimus" refers to the rough, prickly body surface (Latin: asper 'rough, coarse'; and rimosus 'cracked, full of crevices').

In 2010, Joachim Bresseel collected an Aretaon female from Mount Gantung in Palawan, from whose abdomen he was able to dissect four eggs.

Also eaten are ivy, oak, hazel, European beech, and Rosaceae like bramble, and Crataegus (hawthorns).

The food plants are placed as leafy twigs in narrow-necked vases in the terrarium and sprayed with water about every two days.

To lay eggs, a five-centimeter-high layer of a slightly damp humus-sand mixture should cover the ground.