Spiny-legged katydid
Image: Alan Henderson
Source: Museum Victoria
Staff from the Live Exhibits Unit recently returned from an invertebrate collecting trip in north Queensland.
Collecting for seven days, they amassed an astounding 503 specimens representing at least 116 different species. This included a range of predatory and herbivorous katydids, orb weaving spiders, huntsman spiders, grasshoppers, stick insects, assassin bugs, centipedes, millipedes, cockroaches, scorpions and more.
These animals will be used to revitalise the Bugs Alive! exhibition and will go on display in the next few weeks, as soon as species labels can be printed for species not currently on display. Some animals will also be kept back-of-house to establish captive breeding populations.
During the trip Live Exhibits staff members became nocturnal, as the majority of invertebrates couldn’t be found during the day.
Most nights collecting took place until 2am, except for the last night when it was 4am before the staff could tear themselves away from their work. On that night it took seven hours to travel an 8km stretch of rainforest road, stopping every 200m and finding amazing animals at every stop.
The trip was a very successful one, so if you get a chance in the next few weeks to check out Bugs Alive!, hopefully you’ll see some of our new acquisitions.