Activity: Buggy Pets

Buggy Pets

http://www.amonline.net.au/insects/insects/pets.htm

http://www.bugsincyberspace.com/raising_phasmids.html

As the resident hamster-cage cleaner, I can see the appeal of insect pets. If your young entomologist wants to keep a bug for more than an hour or two, these pages have advice on selection and care of insects. For example, I learned how you provide drinking water, and it's not via a tiny water bottle. Instead, you keep a piece of moist sponge in a jar lid.

The cool science comes from trying to recreate an insect's natural habitat, and from observing the insect's life cycle. The bugsincyberspace page is written by a serious hobbyist, and even has an e-mail address your child could use to correspond with someone who apparently knows his bugs.

Read our review of the Bug Vacuum Toy