It seemed only fitting to properly unveil the new arrivals with some beautiful photographs of a sort that I am not capable of taking. Above is a shot of one of the new Giant African Millipedes, Archispirostreptus gigas. Many thanks to 9 Little Bees for his stunning work I hope you all enjoy the pictures.
Above you can see one of the large male Madagascan Hissing Cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa. You can tell this one is a male from the two lumps on the top of his head that he uses to assert his dominance over other males. As the name suggests, they can hiss by forcing air through their spiracles and males like this one tend to hiss more than females.
Giant African Land Snails can be one of three different species which are difficult to differentiate between so "GAL" is the normal catch-all term. This one is a venerable old lady (although actually, snails are hermaphrodites so its both really) who is about 12 inches or so in length when she's fully extended out of her shell.
Finally, we have a personal favourite of mine the Emperor Scorpion, Pandinus imperator. As long as you know what you're doing, they are perfectly happy being handled and are in fact incredibly gentle as long as you're not mistaken for anything edible. As an arachnid, they have eight legs and two 'arms' which are this species' main weapons - its claws. The size of the claws tell you that the sting is not particularly potent, and in fact they rarely use it.
With all the new additions, I've been spending quite a bit of time sorting out all of the critters and making sure they've settled in OK. Once its looking a bit more settled in the bug house there will be plenty more of these stunning photos and lots more all about these brilliant beasties.
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