The picture below shows our anthia mating.

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More exciting nerws is the hatching of fregate beetle grubs.  If the grubs pupate we would have 4 generation adults. This is great news for the conservation of this species and it will help increase the numbers of fregate beetles in the wild, which are seriously in decline due to introduced rats and habitat destruction.

The other new arrivals are 11 adult rosy wolf snails all the way from tahiti. These snails were taken off the island of tahiti as part of an eradication programme. The rosy wolf snails will be displayed near our encounter zone.

Our crayfish has had eggs but unfortunately we don’t have a male to fertilise the eggs.

Thats all for now so if you are stuck for things to do why don’t you pay us a visit. And don’t forget the most talked about tarantula in britain- rosie webster can still be seen in the exhibition.

Wiggles and giggles.

Jeff

This month we have seen the installation of our new marine tank, we are displaying lots of different invertebrate species from the Albert Dock and the surrounding local coast lines.Its became my favourite job to feed all the sea anemones as when I put my hand and arms in to reach the anemones the prawns come and sit on my arms and clean them for me. It really tickles. It’s such a busy tank with the shore crabs always on the go and squabbling.

Also we have seen the arrival of our flower beetles which have a beautiful colour, as I’m sure you will agree if you came in to see them.

We had to send poor Jeff the abattoir again for cow’s blood for the leeches which were fed yesterday. . Got to say it’s my least favourite job although we know the leeches appreciate it they are huge now and have nice full stomachs. For at least another 2 months anyway.
The new salmon pink tarantula mentioned in previous Blogs has just shed today; she now looks all shiny and new and will hopefully start eating more frequent now. She has taken a while to settle in.

That most of the gossip for the moment guys.

Hope to see you over the weekend.

Mike

Its Mike here, sorry it has been a while since our last update we have not had a minute to our selves over Easter.
If you came to visit us then we hoped you enjoyed our egg hunt.
Back to our keeper news, we have had a baby boom with over 90 leaf insects hatching and more each day and with a running total of 31 red spotted assassin bug nymphs, plus our first baby African train millipede not to mention the 20 emperor scorpions which were born 2 weeks ago and are on display with their mum at the encounter zone.
The mum is very protective of them and they will stay with her for about 3 weeks until they have their first shed, then it’s off into the not so big bad world of our husbandry room. Where we will care for them and send them to other zoo collections.

About 3 weeks ago a member of the public donated a Salmon pink bird eater tarantula, she is HUGE and is settling in to our vet room we plan to rotate her with our existing salmon pink on display in our reception.
We also now have 4 Orchid mantises that we are growing on in our husbandry room and once they are big enough they will go on display in the rain forest.
Also for all you school groups we now have snippet our rainbow crab in the education room, he has became a firm favourite with all the staff as he has attitude.

That’s all for now guys, hope to see you soon.

Mike

I hope everyone has had a fun week we certainly have at the bugworld experience

We have had 3 leaf insects hacth this week. These are black when they hatch our but turn green after a few days. We have had to incubate the eggs for 5-6 months.

Also this week we fed our leeches with cows blood. Instead of using sausage skin to hold the blood we used a collagen based skin that worked a lot better and didn’t split. The leeches will kept off show for two weeks, so that myself and mike can monitor them, but also so that their water can be changed every day as they produce urea in the water, and this can adversely affect them.

Our 10 rhino beetles grubs that hatched a couple months ago are thriving and they are now at the L3 stage of growth. The different grub sizes are categorised into 3 forms L1, L2, L3. L1 is the first stage and this life stage usually measures from 30-40mm. The L2 lifestage measures from 60 -70mm and L3 grubs measure upto 80mm.
We are hoping that the grubs start going into cocoon in the next month.

So if you want something a little different this weekend why don’t you pop in

Wiggles and Giggles

Jeff

Mike here, ..

 We had a really busy week on half term and we hoped you enjoyed our craft sessions and love bug quiz.
The winner was chosen at random and I am sure they will enjoy their bag of goodies.
This week saw us receiving a new Salmon Pink Tarantula from a member of the public; she is huge and is settling in our quarantine room, we plan on putting her on display later this year to give Tallulah who is on show in our shop a change of scenery .
The rhinoceros beetle grubs are growing really fast and eating there way through all the rotten wood and carrots that we can give them.
I also started to pin the sheds of our animals, in a nice display case which will be on our encounter zone soon. Also this week saw one of our young black widows mature into a male, meaning once we have fattened up our adult female we can try and breed them. If he survives his first mating he will be paired with another female.
 We will keep you posted on all the goings on of our animals and we hope to see you soon.
Mike

Picture taken by Karen Entwistle

In other news our pink toed tarantula has shed so it will take a day to harden her new skin. You have to be careful not to feed them if they are shedding their skin as crickets have a tendency to eat the animal while it sheds.

So if you want a really fun time whilst your off school why don’t you come and visit the BugWorld Experience

Wiggles and Giggles

Jeff

I hope you all heard me on the radio, I was on Juice fm last Thursday talking about our Yellow tailed Scorpion Hope who we had to send to the vets to be anesthetised as she was covered in mites which could have been fatal. She is doing great now and should be on display soon.
We also found ten Rhinoceros beetle grubs, hopefully there should be more but we don’t want to disturb them too much.

 The McLeay’s stick insects had a full clean out this week and we found over 200 eggs. So we have plenty of these fantastic insects to come which is great news as they are a firm favourite here at BugWorld.
This week saw the arrival of another  yellow tailed scorpion, this rather big girl has came to us from another collection and is settling into our quarantine room and will stay there waiting for our current scorpions to catch up to her size.
That’s all for this week guys
Hope to see you all soon especially over half term

Mike

Two of our lined mantis were put in together to see if the female liked the male.
It took two days for anything to happen and unfortunately when we came in the next day the male was mating with the female but she had eaten his head. We left the headless male in with the female  and she decided to eat his whole body.

This behaviour is quite common, even if the female is fattened up beforehand.

We have now left the female alone, and hopefully she will deposit an egg sac (ootheca) in the next couple of weeks. The ootheca can take up to 3 months to hatch, so we are in for a long wait.

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Also this week our spare salmon pink tarantula went to another collection. This tarantula was brought into us by the R.S.P.C.A as a cruelty case. All the staff at BugWorld are really pleased that she has found a new home after being mistreated, and we all hope she settles in well to her new home

Thats all for now

Wiggles and giggles

Jeff

Happy new year to you all. We all hope you had a great time over the festive season.
All our young stick insects are growing well and eating us out of house and home. They will soon be out to meet you all.
We also sourced a new male Lined mantis to mate with one of our adult females, we have now given her a bigger enclosure and feeding her up so she is nice a full when we introduce the new male. This is so there is less chance of her eating him. Although it’s not as common as you think it’s still a possibility and we wouldn’t want him to become a snack for her.
Our huntsman on display has produced another egg sac; let’s keep our fingers crossed this time. She is not the greatest of mums so we have not had much luck so far with previous egg sacs.
As mentioned in a previous blog we have young Assassin Bugs, well they are growing well and we now have ten.
Also those of you who have been would of seen Jake our Red Knee Tarantula in the savannah zone. When we rescued him he had a very small left back leg this was due to being kept in the wrong environment and when he shed he lost his leg. When I came in on Boxing Day he had shed again and you can’t really see the difference between leg sizes. Although he now has a bit of an attitude to go with his new leg.
His shed is on show at our encounter zone and I’m sure our presenters will be happy to point out his small leg.

It’s nice and warm here in Bugworld so come along and meet our bugs.

See you soon.

Mike

I can’t believe its almost Christmas, this year has flown by so fast. 

We have some new addtions to the BugWorld family. These include 2 pairs of adult black widows, 9 juvenile black widows, and 2 fishing spiders.
Our female black widow that is on display will hopefully be paired up with a male next year. Before we can put a male in with the female black widow we first have to feed her up.
The reason we feed her up is because Black widows have a tendancy to eat the males during courtship, so this will hopefully prevent that from happening.

Our new fishing spiders are currently off display as they have to go through a quarantine period. Each new animal is quarantined so that they do not pass on anything nasty to our other animals. Once we feel the fishing spiders are fit and healthy, we can then look at introducing the male to the female we already have.

The macleays spectre stick insects that are on display are thriving. We must have over 50 animals in there and this number keeps on increasing!

The lined mantis that we mentioned in previous blogs are growing fast and 6 out of the 13 animals have matured into adults.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and I hope to see you all next year.

Wiggles and Giggles

Jeff