[1] The first animals that can be safely assigned to this species were observed at the beginning of June 2008 by Thierry Heitzmann at 100 to 250 metres (330 to 820 ft) elevation in Ilanin Forest near Morong in the province of Bataan on the Filipino island Luzon.

[1] Already at the beginning of 2008, some specimens, including the first known males of the genus, were collected by Orlando L. Eusebio, S. A. Yap and A. R. Larona on Mount Cayapo in the Mariveles Mountains in the Barangay Alangan in the municipality of Limay, which also belongs to the province of Bataan.

Females are particularly noticeable with a very narrow white or slightly wider cream-colored longitudinal stripe across their entire body.

[1] The eggs, which are laid in the ground using the ovipositor and are bulbous in the middle, are relatively large and can be easily distinguished from those of the other Sungaya species by their shape.

The operculum called cover sits on the egg sloping towards the ventral side, creating an opercular angle of about 5 degrees.

[1][3] In 2011 Sungay aeta was hybridized with Trachyaretaon negrosanon, a then undescribed Obrimini species from Negros.

[5] Sarah Bank et al. included four samples from different Sungaya stocks in their study published in 2021 based on genetic analysis to clarify the phylogeny of the Heteropterygidae.

Following the results of Bank et al. their sister taxon would be a species named there as Sungaya sp.

In contrast to the first breeding strain, the real Sungaya inexpectata, which was found at an altitude of around 400 metres (1,300 ft) in the "Highland", all sexual breeding strains of the genus imported until at least 2013 were called Sungaya inexpectata "Lowland" or, more rarely, Limay "Lowland", regardless of their exact origin.

Only since the description of the species in 2023 has the name Sungaya aeta 'Ilanin Forest' become increasingly common for this breeding line.

For this reason and because of its color and pattern variability, together with the mixed strains of the genus, it is one of the most widespread stick insects in hobbyists' terrariums.

To lay eggs, a slightly moist layer of earth or sand should cover the ground.