Let’s deal with the ‘helluva hopper’ first.  This sporty looking little grasshopper it seems flew all the way from India to England but decided that, rather than waste his energy ‘paddling his own canoe’, he’d come over First Class and stowed away on a plane, eventually landing at England’s Stansted Airport.

He was identified by the UK’s Food & Environment Research Agency as a Painted Grasshopper but his more formal title is Poeklocerus Pictus.  He’s about 6 cm long and, as you can see from his mug shot, he’s blue and yellow. 

However, he’s a bit of a ‘Mr Creosote’ (Monty Python fans will know exactly what I’m talking about!) and gorges himself on vegetables.  Our little friend above was swiftly swept away from Stansted to serve time in quarantine and immediately managed to chomp his way through a cabbage.  According to Chris Malumphy who is an entomologist at the FERA , in proportion to their size, grasshoppers eat around eight times faster than cattle.

For those of you here in the UK who are worried that this mighty muncher or his family might deprive you of your Brussels sprouts on Christmas Day, don’t panic … FERA have said that if there are more members of the Munch Bunch among us, they’re unlikely to survive our climate, unlike in it’s native land of India where it’s reported to decimate food plants such as aubergines, citrus fruits, potatoes and tomatoes.

Now we come to our eight legged beasties.

A new breed of giant spider has been discovered by a group of US and Slovenian researchers (from the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History) in Africa and Madagascar.  The spider is of the Golden Orb Weaver species and the female has an inch and half long body with a leg span of five inches.  Needless to say, the web is equally impressive and can stretch to a width of more than three feet.  In comparison, the males have a leg span of just one inch.

This latest discovery from the Nephila family and called Nephila Komaci was thought to be extinct but Jonathan Coddington from Smithsonian said that a pal of his from South Africa found a male and two females in the Tembe Elephant Park in Africa.  Having visited Mr Nephila and his small harem, the researchers carried out some tests and have now confirmed it’s the largest Orb Weaver known and is a newly identified species.  However, Mr Coddington has said this possibly endangered species isn’t out of the woods yet as its only definite habitat appears to be a sand forest in this elephant park and its range is restricted - it lies within two endangered biodiversity areas  (Maputaland and Madagascar).

This new variety was named after one of the researchers’ friends – Andrej Komac who sadly died in an accident during the discovery process.

And my final little beastie, although he may look a bit scary, is a New Age/Hippy (depending on your age!) spider and is a veggie!!!

He’s quite a rarity – as far as we know, he’s the first vegetarian spider (1 in 40,000) and eats leaf tips filled with nectar rather than insects.

This jumping spider (known as Bagheera Kiplingi) lives in Central America and takes nectar-filled tips of acacia bushes (known as Beltian bodies).  But fret ye not … these bushes are unlikely to be razed to the ground as they’re closely guarded by a variety of ant against other herbivores so very few vegetarians get the chance to nip in there for a swift snack.  It’s thought that our Jumping Jack Flash uses his excellent eyesight, speed and cunning to get past the ants and steal the acacia tips – an advantage over other herbivores.  But scientists are also of a mind that the spiders may have the knack of imitating the ants’ chemical scent.

The spiders are predominantly vegetarian in Mexico but have been known to pick up the odd ant larvae in Costa Rica and just to take this tree-hugging hippy idea one step (or eight) further, the male spider is very much a ‘New Age man’ – it’s thought he helps to look after the eggs and care for the children (presumably while wifey’s pursuing her 9-5 job ‘in the City’!!!)