The Giants of the Rainforest...............

Most people are unaware of the sizes that some of the tropical jungle and rainforest species of invertebrates grow to. I keep a lot of the tropical giants, Beetles, Bird-eating spiders, Centipedes, Forest scorpions and Stick insects. Even though most of these captive bred strains are from large individuals to provide large healthy specimens for the enthusiast, you still have to wonder to what size some of the freak specimens can grow to in there natural environment. Tales of monster bugs have been passed around for years, ten inch Mantids feeding on mice, killer spiders as big as your face and Centipedes over a foot and a half long attacking villages. There's no doubt that these creatures can grow to these sizes but it's movies that give them the bad press.

A very strange event happened many years ago in a village in Indonesia when the villages rubbish tip caught fire, thousands of large centipedes over seven inches long scurried out of the burning rubbish dump where they had made there home. The people were terrified and fled the village. This sounds like a scene from a horror movie but it was no more than a freak accident caused by neglect.

For well over twenty years I've kept all types of creatures and my worst nip was from a forest scorpions pincher, and I asked for that one. I try not to handle any of my creatures but when I do it's them that handle me, I become an inanimate object and basically change there direction by gently blowing or touching them with a pencil or similar object. But the best advice I can give and without doubt the safest is "Do not handle them",they were never meant to be handled.

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