Keeping Live Insects

Many insects can be kept alive in captivity so their feeding, moulting, pupation, egg-laying and warning behaviour can be studied. Some can be kept as breeding cultures; others can be kept temporarily but are difficult to breed while some can be caught in the field as caterpillars and kept to adulthood.

Convenient holding cages can be made from all sorts of materials ranging from the traditional shoebox to polystyrene vegetable boxes which have no holes. Doors and windows can be added to them with a thin-bladed hobby knife. Glass, perspex, plastic film or fly wire provide the essential viewing window.

Livestock of some species are often available by mail order from

• Mt Glorious Biological Centre (External web site) (07) 3289 0161 (South Queensland)
• The Australian Insect Farm (External web site) (07) 4063 3860 (North Queensland)

See links below for advice on how to keep the following insects:

• Ants
• Aquatic Insects
• Butterfly Caterpillars
• Field Crickets
• Giant Burrowing Cockroaches
• Grasshoppers and Locusts
• Harlequin Bugs
• Meal Worms
• Milkweed Bugs
• Mosquitoes
• Native Bees
• Silkworms
• Stick Insects

Keeping Live Insects (PDF 382kB) gives details of all the above insects.