Zoo Lab: Creepy Crawly Fun!

One day, a man called Karl from Zoo Lab brought some strange and wonderful creepy crawlies to show the children. But first, he told us 4 rules: 

• No shouting or loud noises -- it will frighten the creatures!
• No walking around -- we might step on them accidentally!
• No touching our faces after handling the animals -- germs!
• WASH HANDS AFTER to get rid of the yucky stuff!

A lot of the children were not afraid at all; they very excitedly touched and stroked our new friends:

• a hissing cockroach
• a millipede
• a 5-foot python
• a toad
• a tarantula (we didn't touch this one because she was grumpy)
• a black rat
• a giant land snail

Karl told us some very interesting things about the creatures he looks after. For example, did you know that a tarantula is sick all over her dinner before she slurps it up again like soup and fluffs her bottom when she's cross, a cockroach lives on even if it is inside your tummy, a giant land snail's poo changes colour to match what he's eaten, you can count a millipede's legs by counting how many segments it's got and double it, a toad swallows food with its eyes....

Pssst! And that toad wee'd all over the floor!

Eughhhh!

Of course the children absolutely LOVED all these yucky details and were fuelled to look for, explore, observe and look after other creatures we may have in our own garden!