Also in Animals
& Plants:
Mammals
Birds
Reptiles
Fish and Amphibians
Plants
INSECTS
AND SPIDERS
This is another 'popular' group of animals; you either love them or
hate them! Members of the Insect family typically have six legs and Spiders
eight. Some can fly, some are vegetarians and some are parasites. They
are the most numerous creatures on earth and there are probably millions
of species that we are yet to discover and name!
COCKROACHES
These are very adaptable and successful insects. They can survive in very
harsh environments and have a hard outer casing (exo-skeleton) that helps
protect them. Some also produce a loud 'hissing' noise when threatened.
They are happy to colonise human habitation if the conditions are suitable
and are extremely difficult to control once established.
ANTS
These small insects have a highly organised social way of life. They live
in big colonies with special individuals performing specific jobs. Most
of them, including the egg producing Queen, the workers and the soldiers
are female.
Males only hatch from specially produced eggs once a year and unlike the
females, have wings that they use to fly off, find another Queen and start
a new colony. The Queen only needs to mate once and will then produce
fertile eggs for the rest of her life! Some ants catch other small insects
as food but Leaf cutter Ants are actually farmers who grow a special fungus
on pieces of leaves they collect. The fungi and not the leaves is the
ant's food.
STICK
INSECTS
These leaf eating insects get their name from the way the camouflage themselves.
By resembling sticks, twigs and leaves they make it very difficult for
predators to spot them. They normally specialise in feeding from one particular
plant and resemble that plant as closely as possible. Sometimes they even
have spikes on their bodies to resemble the thorns on that plant.
MILLIPEDES
We have managed to identify around 6,000 different species and sub-species
of Millipede but experts estimate that there may be as many as 36,000!
Although they are all generally called 'Millipedes', meaning: 'Thousand
legs' they have far less.
In fact most have between 19 and 375 pairs of legs! Found in the wild
in almost every continent, the largest and most commonly seen in captivity
is the African Black Millipede. This species can reach a length of over
25cms!
TARANTULAS
These are typically large hairy South American spiders. Their African
and Asia equivalent are known as 'Baboon' spiders and unlike tarantulas
these often have very toxic venom that can be fatal to humans. The most
commonly known and recognisable large spider is the Mexican Red-kneed
Tarantula.
These friendly tarantulas are popular as pets as they are calm, slow moving
and manageable. Unfortunately their popularity as pets had led to large
numbers being collected from the wild. Recent legislation and controls
on export and import has helped to preserve wild populations and this
species is quite easy to breed in captivity, although feeding several
hundred tiny hatchlings until they reach full size can be a full time
job!
ORB
SPIDERS
This is the family of spiders that builds a circular web of sticky threads
across openings to help them catch winged insects. In the UK we have a
number of different species including the large brightly coloured ‘Wasp
Spider’. This has vivid yellow, white and black stripes horizontally
across it’s abdomen and we frequently have members of the public
bringing them in to us to identify as they can’t believe that they
are not exotic visitors!
Amazon World Zoo Park Watery Lane, Nr Arreton, Isle of Wight PO36 0LX
Tel: 01983 867122 Fax: 01983 868560 Email: info@amazonworld.co.uk