Soil life exhibition

L

LARTIS

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
I am sorry but I forgot the professional termina for soil life, but i was looking for Instituions that exhibit species that live on and in substrate.

I personaly have not come across such an idea yet, except one time at the old monkey house at artis zoo in amsterdam that had substrate filled from the bottom of glass windows to a height of I d estimate half a meter.

The official inhabitants were Mandrills but there were some isopods and ants in the substrate.

The monkeys sort of digged thru the upper layer and but seemed to be able to recognize that view of a visitor implied se critter d be around that area and so they digged even deeper if the out look seemed promising.

I am talking less about mole rats and other bigger mostly vertebrates.
Rather earth worms and other micro species.
 
Does Micropia at the Artis Zoo have any exhibits about the fauna in the soil?

This would be an interesting exhibit idea for an insect zoo to take on. I cannot recall seeing any soil fauna specific exhibits at the insect zoos that I have seen at American zoos like Cincinnati, San Diego, Smithsonian Natural History Museum, or San Francisco.
 
I've seen nature centers do this but never actual zoos. I've never seen a zoo that displays earthworms.
 
A very long time ago, in the 80’s, I visited the Giant Earthworm in Victoria; it had at least one living specimen on display; the view in a glass or plastic tube was limited but the worm was about an inch in diameter and maybe a foot or more length was visible.
 
I realized I had not mentioned originaly another source of inpsiration for the thread.
I have a tropical invertebrate tank home to congo sun beetle along a clean up crew consisting of dwarf isopod, tropical springtail and two sorts of mites, one red and one white, which were introduced accidentaly.
The larva of the beetle live inthe substrate and create a tunnel system in which the isopods and springtail hide. Some of these are partialy built againstthe glass which allow to view the larva isopod and springtail to be viewed close up, what was normaly not possible because the later two are very sensitive toward any movement in front of the tank when they are on the substrates surface.

Another tank holds earth worms, that also partialy built tunnels along the glass, as mealworm larva did in their sand clay mix substrate.
 
I remember seeing earthworms in the liberty science center at New Jersey back when I was 8 years old. I do not know if the worms are still kept on display there.
 
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