SomeFacts | Creepy Crawlies

Creepy Crawlies

Where do slugs hang out in dry weather?
We always see slugs in wet weather, but where do they go when it ...

How do snails breathe?
Slugs and snails have turned the wall of the mantle (the skin of the ...

How do snails move without legs?
Snails move on a single thick pad of muscle known as the "foot." ...

Do slugs and snails have teeth?
Not really. Snails and slugs have no jaws like ours, but they have ...

Which slugs mate in mid-air?
Most slugs and snails are both male and female in the same body. Even ...

What do snails do in a drought?
Although their shells are waterproof, snails' bodies are likely to ...

What are the rarest snails in the world?
The Partula snails, of some South Pacific islands, may be the rarest ...

What do snail eggs look like?
Some species produce clutches of up to 100, others fewer. In many ...

How do snails make shells?
The mantle is a skin that covers the parts of the snail that stay ...

Do all snail shells coil the same way?
In most snails, the shells spiral to the right. If you hold the shell ...

How big is the biggest snail?
The shell of the giant African snail Achatina can be up to 13 in (35 ...

Why do we cook meat?
Cooking meat can improve the flavour or tenderness, but it is also ...

Which worm lives inside people?
The human blood fluke is the "flatworm" that causes the disease ...

Which worms can you catch from a dog?
Dogs often have parasitic worms inside them. These can include a tiny ...

Do worms eat potatoes?
Roundworms are shapeless worms with two pointed ends. They are very ...

How long does an earthworm live?
So many earthworms are eaten by birds and animals, from moles to ...

How many worms are there in a bucket of soil?
In soil from a fertile meadow, there may be as many as 700 earthworms ...

Where do killer worms live?
When humans transport insects to different countries, the effects can ...

How long is a tapeworm?
Many kinds of tapeworm infect the gut of animals. In man, the pork ...

Which moth smells like a goat?
The goat moth has a larva that produces a strong smell of goat. The ...

What is a silkworm?
The silkworm is the caterpillar of the mulberry silk moth Bombyx ...

How good is a moth’s nose?
The male silk moth can detect the scent of a female ready to mate ...

How do tiger moths baffle bats?
Bats hunt tiger moths at night. The bats give out high-pitched ...

Why do butterflies and moths have eyespots?
The eyespots on the wings of a moth or butterfly can fool a predator ...

Which moth encourages its food to grow?
Many moths and butterflies may help their food grow, because they ...

How are the colors of butterflies made?
The wings of butterflies and moths are covered in tiny overlapping ...

Where do butterflies go in the winter?
In cooler climates, when butterflies disappear in winter, many people ...

What do butterflies like to eat?
Adult butterflies do not need to grow, so their food needs are for ...

How do you tell a butterfly from a moth?
Butterflies fly by day, have club-shaped antennae, and are often ...

Is a weevil evil?
The weevils are a huge group of beetles, that have "elbows" on their ...

How are dung beetles useful?
Dung beetles remove and break down vast amounts of dung, and return ...

Which beetles shoot their enemies?
Bombardier beetles store chemicals in a special chamber in their ...

How many beetle species are there?
About 370,000 different species of beetles have been found so far; ...

Why do ladybirds have bright colors?
Many beetles that are brightly colored in red or yellow, like the ...

Which is the largest beetle?
The biggest beetles in the world are about the size of a mouse. ...

Which beetle might you find in your cereal?
A number of beetles can get into cereal products such as flour, ...

How does the death-watch beetle attract a mate?
The death-watch beetle lives in tunnels that it makes inside dry wood ...

Would you like a woolly bear in your sweater?
Woolly bears are the hairy larvae of museum beetles and carpet ...

What are “no-see-ums’?
No-see-ums are North American biting midges. They feed on us, using ...

How does a blowfly taste its food?
It is useful to a fly to know, before it tries to feed, whether what ...

Which flies help the police with their enquiries?
Different species of flies arrive at different stages, during the ...

Why do humans avoid the tsetse fly?
The tsetse fly is the insect that carries sleeping sickness, and can ...

Can you tell a fly by its wings?
True flies can always be recognised among the insects because they ...

How do bluebottles spread disease?
Bluebottles eat the kind of food that is likely to have bacteria on ...

Why do some flies look like bees?
By trying to look like animals with a dangerous sting, flies may stop ...

Why are fruit-flies important to scientists?
Fruit-flies are important because they are small and easily bred in ...

Can flies eat your living flesh?
Some flies lay their eggs in the skin of living animals. The larvae ...

Why do flies like animal dung?
Many species of fly lay their eggs on dung, which provides a ...

Are head lice dangerous?
The human head louse lives in human hair and can be an irritating ...

What do lice eat?
All lice are parasites. They live on the skin of mammals and birds. ...

What are jiggers?
Jiggers are also called sand fleas. The females burrow into the skin ...

Why do lice have flat bodies?
Lice have low, flat bodies so that they can squeeze between the hairs ...

What are nits?
Nits are the eggs of the head louse. Female lice lay eggs in the hair ...

Do fleas like to live on anyone?
Fleas do tend to live on just one particular type of host. There are ...

How big do fleas get?
The size of the host makes no difference to the size of the flea that ...

Why do fleas spread the plague?
Plague is a disease that is carried by rats. Fleas that carry the ...

Do birds have fleas?
Nine-tenths of the world's fleas feed on mammals, but there are ...

What do young fleas look like?
Young fleas are tiny, worm-like larvae. The larva lives in the nest ...

How many locusts are there in a swarm?
Many millions of locusts move together in the largest swarms. The ...

Where do locusts live?
Locusts live in the Mediterranean region, Asia, Australia, North and ...

How do you stop a locust?
Locust swarms can be sprayed from the air with poisons. But by the ...

How does a locust swarm form?
When the rains come, females lay lots of eggs and thousands of new ...

Which creature lets its leg drop off?
If another animal seizes a grasshopper by the leg, the grasshopper ...

Why do grasshoppers sit on the edge of a leaf?
Grasshoppers have strong chewing mouthparts which bite from side to ...

How do grasshoppers and crickets sing?
There are two main ways of "singing" if you are a grasshopper or ...

Why are crickets kept in cages?
In China, the song of the house cricket has always been really ...

Do grasshoppers have ears?
Yes, but they aren't always where you'd expect them to be. ...

Which crickets like to make a noise?
The mole cricket spends much of its time burrowing underground. On ...

How do some grasshoppers disappear in a flash?
Most grasshoppers are brown or green in color, and patterned for ...

Which bug followed us from our ancestors’ caves?
The bed-bug is a wingless insect that comes out at night, and feeds ...

Which insect doesn’t like wine?
The vine phylloxera aphid comes from North America. It was ...

How do aphids cause havoc?
Sometimes aphids damage crops just because there are so many of them ...

How do aphids drink plant juice?
Aphids, such as the greenfly that you find on roses, have special ...

What is cuckoo-spit?
Cuckoo-spit does not come from cuckoos. The frothy "spit" is made by ...

Which insect can color food?
Before the days of artificial food colorings, the red color added to ...

Which bug spends years underground?
The periodical cicada, of America, has a life span of 17 years. ...

What insect makes sweets?
Some kinds of scaled insects produce a syrupy secretion. As the ...

Which bug is an assassin?
Assassin bugs are predators (creatures that prey on other creatures) ...

Which bugs feed on human blood?
A number of assassin bugs can feed on human blood, but most are not ...

Why do dragonflies fly in pairs?
Dragonflies seen flying together are usually a mating pair. A male ...

Why have dragonflies got such good eyes?
An image on a computer screen is made up of a series of dots. The ...

Why does a dragonfly need a mask?
A dragonfly larva needs a mask in order to eat. The mask is the lower ...

What do adult dragonflies eat?
Adult dragonflies catch other insects in mid-air. They hold all their ...

How does a stick insect disguise its eggs?
A stick insect lays eggs that look like seeds. They are dropped on ...

Why are male stick insects rare?
In many, but not all, species of stick insects males are just not ...

Can a praying mantis fly?
Many mantis females have small, useless wings, or no wings at all. ...

How long is the longest stick insect?
The longest stick insect is the saw-footed stick insect of South-east ...

What is the mantis’s main weapon?
The front legs of the mantis are its main weapons. They are very ...

Does the female mantis eat her mate?
In some species of mantis the male is at risk of being the female's ...

Which wasp eats its victims alive?
There are lots of parasitic wasps. These wasps paralyze their victim ...

How many kinds of wasp are there?
There are a surprising number of different kinds of wasp, more than ...

What sort of home does a wasp have?
A wasp's nest is made of tough paper, known as carton. The wasps tear ...

Are wasps any use?
Many people think that the yellow and black striped wasps are our ...

Where is a bee’s shopping basket?
Many bees have a special brush of hairs on each back leg, that they ...

Why are bees hairy?
Some bumblebees are quite good at keeping themselves warm, when the ...

How long have people kept bees?
People have made use of bees for a very long time. Beehives, and ...

Why are bees good dancers?
When a bee returns from a successful trip to find pollen, it "dances" ...

How many flowers a day does a bee visit?
A honeybee makes about 10 trips from the hive, each day, looking for ...

How do bees become queens?
The job that a bee does in the hive depends on what it eats. A queen ...

What is bee-bread?
Bee-bread is the mixture of honey and pollen that bees use as food, ...

Are bees vegetarian?
Yes, bees, unlike their relatives the wasps, are vegetarian. They ...

How many ants are there in an ant nest?
Some estimates put the number of ants in such a nest as high as 7 ...

Are all ants sociable?
All ant species are social animals. This means that they live in ...

Which ants look after “cows”?
Several kinds of ant feed on a sweet substance, called honeydew, ...

Why do ants have wings?
Ants' wings are only used when they mate. Only fully-grown males and ...

Are ants dangerous drivers?
The driver ants of Africa, and similar species in South America, can ...

Why do ants need slaves?
Some ants are forced to act as workers for other species. The ...

Why do ants tap?
When ants tap each others antennae, it is a way of communicating. ...

When is an ant like a honeypot?
Among Myrmecocystus ants, of North America, some of the workers are ...

How do ants grow mushrooms?
The leaf-cutter ants, of tropical America, cut out pieces of leaf to ...

Which ants like a thorny home?
The acacia ant makes its small nest just in the spiny tips of twigs ...

Which termites are suicide bombers?
There are termite species which don't have a soldier caste. The ...

How many eggs does a queen termite lay?
The queen termite's only job is to lay eggs, and she may become much ...

Which insects have air-conditioned nests?
In insect nests, most of the "living accommodation" is below ground. ...

Why are some termites magnetic?
Magnetic termites live in Australia. They build a nest in a flat ...

Who helps termites digest their food?
Wood-eating termites do not actually digest wood themselves, but rely ...

What is a termite garden?
Some species of termite, including Macrotermes, farm, or grow, a ...

What’s the difference between a termite and an ant?
There isn't a lot of difference between them, ants eat other ...

Which insect likes a termite bite?
Termites are a tasty food to other insects, particularly ants. Many ...

Why are termites heavier than elephants?
Millions of termites live in the tropics. There may be as many as ...

What tick carries a mountainous disease?
A serious illness, called Rocky Mountain fever, is caused by a tiny ...

How big are the biggest millipedes?
Some of the millipedes that live in the tropical parts of Africa grow ...

What do centipedes have for dinner?
Centipedes eat insects, slugs, and other creepy-crawlies; they even ...

What animal lives in your eyelashes?
Almost all of us have tiny mites living in the sockets of our eyes. ...

How can you tell a millipede from a centipede?
Most millipedes are slow-moving plant-eaters with short legs and ...

Will you ever be attacked by a centipede?
Centipedes have a pair of poison fangs, that they use to catch their ...

How many legs does a millipede really have?
In spite of their name (mille is Latin for a thousand), millipedes ...

Why do ticks drink blood?
Ticks don't find food very often, and they must be ready to latch on ...

Where do baby scorpions hitch a ride?
After hatching, the young of many scorpions climb onto their mother's ...

Do all scorpions sting?
All scorpions have poisonous stings at the ends of their tails. They ...

Where do the biggest scorpions live?
The largest scorpions live in tropical forests. Some, such as the ...

What is a spider’s web made of?
A spider's web is made of silk. Spiders have glands on their abdomen ...

Which spider likes to go fishing?
The bolas spider hangs underneath a branch on a silky trapeze, then ...

Can spiders change color?
The crab spiders, such as Misumena, live in flowers. They lie in wait ...

How common are spiders?
Very common indeed. We do not notice most of them, because they are ...

Which spiders give presents?
Male spiders are often smaller than their mates. Sometimes the female ...

Can spiders fly?
Spiders do not have wings, but many species can parachute, or sail ...

How many eyes does a spider have?
Most spiders have eight eyes, but there are species with six, four or ...

Why do spiders spit?
Scytodes, a small black and yellow spider, found in Europe and the ...

How many insects do spiders eat?
We can only guess at the millions of insects eaten by spiders every ...

Are spiders good parents?
Most spiders don't really look after their young. Many lay their eggs ...

Which spider makes the biggest webs?
The tropical orb web spiders can have webs over 16 ft (5 m) across. ...

How many kinds of spider are there?
There are over 30,000 species discovered so far, but there could be ...

Do all spiders have webs?
Not all spiders make a nice round web. Some weave hammock-shaped ...