Three female leaf insects enjoyed their first ever trip to DZG.
The bugs, which camouflage themselves from predators by mimicking leaves, belong to Presenter Caroline Howard pictured right who brought the trio on site from home to use in her Arty Animals education workshop.
During the session a group of school pupils were shown a variety of stick insects from the Discovery Centre’s collections, as well as Caroline’s pets, before they were asked to create their own animal work of art.
Caroline said: “When people think of stick insects they usually think of something that looks like a twig and is quite boring.
“I wanted to get the children to look at them really closely, as they are actually quite beautiful with a lot of detail.
“There is a huge variety of stick insects and they come in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colours and not just twig coloured, some can be bright green like my Leaf insects, others can be pink, black or even electric blue.”
THE BUGS WILL BE BACK . . .
Caroline’s Leaf insects will be making a return visit to the zoo in August as part of Big Bug Bonanza.
The week long event, organised by BIAZA, will run from August 5 11 and aims to raise awareness of insects.
DZG will be joining in the fun with presenters organising a series of bug-related activities for visitors, including meet and greets and providing insect related colouring sheets.
