Minibeasts are small animals that do not have an internal skeleton. They are scientifically known as invertebrates. They live all around us in a multitude of habitats, even in our yards and in our homes. There are more invertebrates on earth than any other type of animal. Another popular name for invertebrates is bugs. 

While there are a myriad of species of invertebrates that live in the oceans of the world, it is the land-based (terrestrial) species that are usually referred to as minibeasts or bugs. These are the invertebrates we encounter quite frequently. The major groups are insects (including flies, beetles, butterflies and ants), arachnids (including spiders, scorpions and harvestmen), crustaceans (including pillbugs and slaters), myriapods (centipedes and millipedes), and gastropods (snails and slugs).

Most of these have hard outer skeletons (exoskeletons) and moult them off in order to grow. The gastropods have soft bodies and grow gradually more like we do. 

Many of these fascinating animals are easy to keep as pets or in the classroom. Stick insects are a great group to start with.

‘What is a minibeast?’ is one of the many minibeast questions we can help you to answer.

We created several resources for kids to learn and we run educational incursions in schools where we bring live minibeasts from our collection with us!