A ZOO WONDER.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 May 1920, Page 3

A ZOO WONDER.

INSECT THAT SHOOTS ITS EGGS LONDON, HU arch 20.

Three rare baby monsters are beuic reared at the London Zoological Gardens with extraordinary care i>\- the Curator of Insects.

Until Yesterday they had a baby sister, but the three horrors caught her when she was changing her dress and bit tier legs off. The. three are the first giant stickinsects to he hatched in this country, but more may arrive any day, as tlie mother hud 140 vggs before being pickled in a crystal tomb.

She was a marvel, that mother, olie was eight inches long, and the afferpart of her body was furnished with ;■ curved spring nearly as large nr, a woman’s finger-nail. As each egg was ready, she shot it out like a. lead pellet from a spring pistol. Her range war well over 20 feet, and the eggs hit the glass of enclosure with a vicious “ping.” The Zoo asked her to sit to a photographer one day, and the monster insect hit him on the waistcoat with a well-aimed egg! Nature’s idea, of course, is to scatter the eggs so that no enemy could wip? out the whole family at a single mouthful (iust as a dandelion covers a ct>ll)l----try-side with tiny pnrchuTes).

The 1 10 eggs—which were laid hist June—have been incubated in a lamp heat of 80 degrees. The moss that • uvered them was watered thrice a day to get the right amount of steamy m< isture. They had all sorts of adventures while still eggs. Once the furnace went wrong and some weer par-boiled. Again a plague of small insects invadtheir enclosure. Every particle of moss was turned over, every egg was recovered, and the nuisances were abated with hpiling water.

Now the fisrt. fruits of this ainasmg. care in the shape of the thro/? - nnh bni sisers) are evident. They have shed their skins eight, or nine times already and are swelling almost visibly. Many more complete changes await them before they are adult but by the end uf the year it is hoped they will reach the full size of 9 inches and that -• me males will have hatched out to 'pieserve the extraordinary race—the lai - gest of all living insects.