Category Plants & Animals

The spiders you see scurrying around your home can be very useful to us. They help get rid of pests, such as flies which carry germs, and there are helpful creepy-crawlies in the garden, too. Hoverflies and ladybirds eat greenfly, and earthworms help improve the soil.

Amazing! Most homes are full of creepy-crawlies, often too small to see without a magnifying glass. Moth larvae eat wool, booklice feed on books, carpet beetles munch carpets, silver fish scuttle under baths, furniture beetles tunnel through furniture, fleas live on cats and dogs, cockroaches lurk behind cookers.

Is it true? Spiders get into the bath by climbing up the drainpipe and through the plug hole.

No. It’s more likely that they fall down the bath’s slippery sides, while roaming around our houses looking for a mate.

Who has been sleeping in my bed?

Dust mites are smaller than a full stop. They live all over the house, but they particularly like beds. Bed bugs are now quite rare, but in some countries they feed on sleeping people.

Who has been in the biscuit tin?

Many creepy-crawlies like to live around food. Cheese mites lay their eggs on cheese. Spider beetles eat spices and sauce mixes. An old bag of flour may contain mites, caterpillars and beetles. Guess what the biscuit beetle prefers? Hard dry ones luckily, not jammy dodgers.

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Paper wasps build nests out of thin sheets of paper. They make the paper themselves by scraping wood from dead trees with their jaws and mixing it with saliva.

What lives in a tower block?

Termites build air-conditioned mounds that can be six metres tall. These nests contain a maze of tunnels and can be home to millions of termites. Each colony has a king, a queen and soldiers to guard it. In countries with a very wet climate, some termites build mounds with umbrella-shaped tops.

Is it true? An ant’s nest is full of different rooms.

Yes. The nest is made up of many separate chambers, connected by a maze of tunnels. Some rooms are nurseries for the eggs and young, others are food cupboards and some are dustbins.

Amazing! Like ants and termites, honeybees live with thousands of others in colonies. They work together to find food, care for the young and protect the nest. The nest is made from waxy material which they shape into honeycomb. Honeybee nests are very strong and can last for 50 years.

What makes a nest in a tree?

Weaver ants make nests by pulling leaves together on a branch. They stick the leaf edges together using sticky silk which they gently squeeze from the ant larvae.

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Some shield bugs protect their eggs by sitting on them. This keeps them safe from hungry predators. After hatching, they look after their young until they can move about.

Who makes a good mum?

A female earwig looks after its eggs and young for several months. It keeps the eggs clean and warm, and feeds the young with food from its own stomach.

Amazing! Many bees and wasps live alone. The potter wasp makes a small vase-shaped nest out of clay and saliva. It lays just one egg in it. It then stocks the nest with food for the larva, seals it up and flies off to make another vase.

Is it true? A queen bee lays up to 3,500 eggs a day.

Yes. Most creepy-crawlies produce large numbers of eggs. This makes sure that at least some survive to adulthood without getting eaten.

How do baby scorpions travel?

Unlike spiders, insects and other creepy-crawlies, scorpions give birth to live young. Some of them are cared for by the mother who carries the whole brood on her back. If one of the young falls off, she places her pincers on the ground so that it can climb back up again.

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The trapdoor spider builds an underground burrow, lined with silk and covered with a hinged lid. It lifts up the lid just a little, peeps out and waits. When prey approaches, it flips open the trapdoor, leaps out and attacks.

What catches its victims with its lip?

Young dragonflies live in ponds and streams. They catch tadpoles and small fish using a special lower lip, which shoots out to stab and hold prey.

Is it true? Wasps will not attack spiders.

No. The sting of the large spider wasp can paralyze a spider three times its size. The wasp then lays an egg on the spider. When the larva hatches it eats the spider alive.

Amazing! Spider webs come in many shapes and sizes. The purse web spider spins a long, tube-shaped web. The spider waits inside the web until an unsuspecting insect lands on the outside of the web. Then it bites through the silk and catches its prey.

What creeps up on its prey?

The jumping spider stalks its prey like a cat, before suddenly pouncing. Even with eight eyes, most spiders are short-sighted, and rely on hairs on their legs to sense vibrations. But jumping spiders have excellent eyesight.

When it’s a stick or leaf insect! Stick and leaf insects are the same colour and shape as the twigs and leaves on which they feed. During the day they sit very still. Predators leave them alone because they don’t realize that they are insects.

What frightens off enemies with its ‘eyes’?

The eyed hawkmoth raises its front wings to show bold markings which look like large eyes. This fools enemies into thinking the moth is a much bigger animal than it really is.

Amazing! Beetles and woodlice have armour covering so tough that it is difficult to crush. This protects them from their enemies. Some woodlice and millipedes roll into a ball like a hedgehog when they are threatened.

Is it true? Some spiders can change colour.

Yes. Crab spiders can change colour to match the flowers they hide in. Lots of insects use camouflage to hide from their enemies. Invisible against the petals, the crab spider can pounce on unsuspecting bees, flies and butterflies as they visit the flower.

What pretends to be dead?

Click beetles lie on their backs as if they were dead to fool their enemies. Then they suddenly spring up in the air, twist and land on their feet, and run away!

Centipedes and millipedes have long, bendy bodies made up of segments. A millipede has two pairs of legs on each segment, but centipedes have only one pair on each segment. Millipedes are plant-eaters. Centipedes are meat-eaters, hunting at night for tiny creatures which they attack with powerful poisonous jaws.

What travels on one big foot?

Snails and slugs glide slowly along on one long muscular foot, leaving a trail of slime behind them. They prefer damp, dark places and are most active at night.

Is it true? It’s a bad thing to have worms in your garden.

No. Gardeners like worms. Earthworms feed on dead plants and soil. As they move through the earth they help mix the soil, which is good. Their burrows put air in the soil and help water to drain away.

Amazing! There are some giant creepy-crawlies. Giant worms in Australia can reach over two metres in length. Some centipedes and millipedes can reach 30 centimetres in length. And the largest land snail, the giant African land snail, is a monster compared with the common garden snail!

How do worms move?

Earthworms live in burrows in the ground. They have no legs, no feet and no skeleton. But their long soft bodies are perfectly shaped to move easily through the earth. They move by stretching and contracting their muscles.

Picture Credit : Google