Canada

Victoria Bug Zoo

A Byrd

— 4 min read
Victoria Bug Zoo
Learning about insects at the Victoria Bug Zoo.

On the Monday after our first weekend in Vancouver, we headed to Vancouver Island for three nights while our hosts had their last few days of work and school before their Christmas break. This post is about one of the tourist attractions we visited: Victoria Bug Zoo. I'll do a couple other posts about the other things we did!

Victoria Bug Zoo is a two-room mini-zoo that houses more than fifty species of exotic (usually enormous!) insects. They also have a room out the back for breeding bugs. A staff member is constantly available to teach visitors about the various critters and take some out of their tanks for people to hold. It was extremely fascinating and we all really enjoyed our visit here!

Victoria Bug Zoo.
This huge centipede was 15-20cm long!
Unfortunately I don't remember the names of most of the creatures!
This is the same type of bug as the one in the previous photo. This one is a female, with her back end buried in the dirt to lay eggs.
This huge fellow was at least 10cm long!
The first hour of the day is "accessibility hour" at the zoo, so everyone has to wear a mask.
These leaf insects are so convincingly leaf-like that they often end up accidentally chewing on each other. This only serves to make them look more leaf-ish, as their edges end up damaged and crinkled!
They also walk with a jiggling side-to-side motion that resembles a leaf swaying in the wind!
There were lots of varieties of tarantulas. We didn't hold any of them... apparently, if they escape, they move so fast our eyes wouldn't be able to keep up with them!
"I live in the sock I knit"...
...like so!
This tank is full of giant walking sticks (that's the species' name) about 25-30cm long. They have the ability to cast off their limbs to escape predators! (They can also regrow them if they haven't finished growing yet.)
These snails were enormous. You can see my hand held outside the tank, level with the snails, to give you an idea of scale!
Some kind of cockroach. Apparently there are more than 5000 varieties of cockroach and only five are considered pests.
Patting a cockroach. They flatten out because they like it!
Look at this guy's spikes!
Connected tanks as part of an ant colony.
Taking a break for some bug-stencilling.
Check out these cuties!
Rainbow stag beetle. My fave!
Gift shop playtime.

How awesome is nature?!

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