Insects & Arachnids

10 species listed on Pet Listings.

10 pages written

A

AntsA colony is one queen and her daughters, and the tunnelling is most of what you watch. Kept in a formicarium, where the nest is the exhibit as much as the animal.

B

BeetleThe largest order of animals on earth. The ones people keep are mostly rhinoceros and stag beetles, and most of a beetle's life is spent as a grub underground.

ButterflyKept as a life cycle rather than as a pet: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, then a few weeks on the wing. The caterpillar stage is the one that needs the right plant.

C

CentipedeFast, predatory and venomous, with one pair of legs to a segment. Not the same animal as a millipede, and not handled the same way.

M

MillipedeTwo pairs of legs to a segment and a diet of rotting wood and leaf litter. Slow, safe to handle, and most of its life happens under the substrate.

MothUsually reared from caterpillars rather than bought grown. The big silk moths never eat as adults at all: they emerge without working mouthparts and live about a week.

P

Praying MantisAn ambush predator that turns its head a full 180 degrees to watch you, which no other insect can do. Females are usually the larger of the two.

S

ScorpionGlows blue green under ultraviolet light, for reasons nobody has settled. The emperor is the one most people keep, and it spends the day under something.

Stick InsectBuilt to be mistaken for the plant it is sitting on. Many species manage without males at all: the females lay eggs that hatch into more females.

T

TarantulaA female can live twenty five years or more while a male rarely reaches ten. Most of the day is spent sitting still, and the hairs are the defence, not the fangs.