This is half-pie.

As previously mentioned, our part of town has a lot of interesting and varied insect life. For example, mantids and stick insects are quite common; here is a picture of one of a brown smooth one (as opposed to a brown spiky one) sitting on Bella’s finger. It’s a small one – just seven centimetres long.


Even more common than stick insects and the like are spiders. We quite like the hunting spiders that roam about inside the house. Bella discovered the sad specimen below – we are not sure how it will cope with only one of its long (technical term coming up) ”arms” left, but hopefully it will survive long enough to grow a new one.

In real life this beastie is a little over a centimetre long, so it’s not quite as fearsome as it looks. A great hunter though – I’ve watched one massacre half a trail of ants – obviously the ants didn’t taste too good as it would chop them in half and throw them away..