About us!

We are Amisadai and Louisa Monger (aged 15 and 13). In 2010, we moved to Tanzania in Africa - look at the map below to see if you can find it! We hope you will enjoy reading about our adventures and looking at our photos! Please don't forget to send us a message too!



Sunday 7 September 2014

BUGS!

This blog post is especially for Simon Aspray who asked a long time ago about bugs here. So this time I'm writing about Tanzania's mysterious.....   creepy crawlies!! We have lots of cool and interesting bugs/insects/creepy crawlies here and lots that cause trouble (like siafu ants which bite very badly). I like bugs, but Louisa likes them more! My favourite Tanzanian crawly creature (although not a bug!) is probably the sand-snake. Some snakes can be dangerous here ... we had a spitting cobra in our garden in Iringa and our friends in Mwanza just had a cobra in their bathroom. We have seen a dead black mamba. Back to bugs, there are lots of mosquitoes here which is a problem for malaria. We have a racquet that we can zap them with - it gives them an electric shock. Big bugs will smoke if you zap them with it! We had a problem with cockroaches in the kitchen, but sugar mixed with baking soda got rid of them. We have to keep lids on things or ants are a problem. Once we had a peanut butter pot FULL of ants. And a margarine pot! We get weevils in things like oats and flour sometimes. We have learned that the things that attracts the most flies is roast pork. Mango flies are a problem ... if they lay their eggs in your knickers (or clothes) on the line. The maggoty creepy crawlies can eat their way into your skin which isn't good. Scorpions can be a problem if they go and sit in your shoe. And you probably already read about our problems with siafu ants!
In the peanut butter

In the flour
But lots of bugs are no trouble and pretty cool. People eat grasshoppers here - fried in lots of oil with lots of salt. Some bugs lose their wings when it rains and we find a carpet of wings outside in the morning. We get lots of geckos which eat the bugs and they are fun to chase and some are really pretty.

How many of these creepy crawlies can you name? Do you have any bug questions or stories?

 












 

1 comment:

  1. Wow, thank you so much for this! I feel highly honoured and thrilled to be mentioned in a famous blog like yours! Here's my attempt at identifying the various fascinating creatures you've pictured:

    Spider, pupae, caterpillar, cricket, millipede, don't know, spider again, snail, grasshopper, flying ant, cockroach, millipede, cricket again, mantis (I love mantids!), ants.
    How did I do?

    I have another question for you: which groups in the animal kingdom do these wonderful bugs belong to? And a bonus for why!

    Isn't our Creator brilliant to have made such variety? Even if they do bite us sometimes...

    Thanks again,
    Simon

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