Creepy Crawlies
Satisfy your curiosity about ants, hawk moths, termites, hermit crabs – and thousands of their relatives.
What makes locusts swarm? How do termites air-condition their homes? How do bees tell where flowers can be found? Find out in the Creepy Crawlies gallery.
Look on as thousands of live leaf-cutter ants work to produce their own food. These industrious creatures live on fungus that grows on the leaves they bring back to their nests. These nests can hold as many as seven million individuals in the wild.
Hawk moths have streamlined wings and bodies perfectly adapted for rapid flight. They are capable of hovering while they use their long tongues to sip nectar from deep flowers such as orchids.
Go inside our life-sized African termite mound and learn more about these useful, but sometimes destructive, insects. In the tropics, termites help recycle soil and create habitats for other species. But they are feared for their ability to eat into and even destroy houses.
Hermit crabs are shell-sharers, protecting themselves by moving into the empty shells of molluscs like periwinkles or whelks, such as this one. Other animals, such as ragworms, also often lodge in hermit crab shells, picking up bits of leftover food from the crab.
