Small Animals by Jack

Small Animals

On the safari, as well as the big animals, we saw lots of small animals. They included fireflies, chameleon, tree squirrels, grass hoppers, millipede, centipede, praying mantis and spiders.

The fireflies were amazing. You couldn’t really see them but Morris showed them to us. We had to stop to see them clearly. When they flashed around it looked like someone was turning on and off a torch.

Lewis found a chameleon in the trees at night. We were amazed at how Lewis could find the chameleon with it blending in. He told us that he saw a pair of eyes in the spotlight that he carries around at night. I even got to hold it but when I went to touch it the chameleon fell off. It is still ok though. After Lewis put the chameleon back onto my arm, it climbed up onto my head. It didn’t change colour because it was too dark to see the colour the chameleon was standing on.

The tree squirrels were on the road until we drove near. They would think we were predators and run to the nearest tree even if it was on the other side of the road. Despite they were small we saw them running and jumping from tree to tree.

Every time we ran over grass, a grass hopper would always land on me. I showed Morris and he tried to catch it but it was too fast for him. You could even see them from the open safari car.

We found a millipede on the path leading to the safari car that was waiting for us. They are massive compared to those at home. It was about 150mm and as thick as your thumb. It pooped on our room key when we showed it to Morris.

The praying mantis was so funny. It was walking inside our jeep, then climbed over the door to the outside while we were driving along. It started to slide down the car door outside because it could not grip on. Then it got hit and smashed off by a branch as we drove along and never saw it again. Max and I laughed so hard we couldn’t sit up any more.

While we were getting out of the car, the Dutch couple in front of us found a centipede. The lady was very scared of bugs so she called Morris. The centipede crawled over the man so they put the centipede gently on the ground. The centipede looked like green slime.

There were lots of spiders so Lewis had a stick to take down the spiders webs. A spider landed on the Dutch man and his wife could have pushed him out of the safari car. There was also a golden orb spider in the back of the safari car making its web. I don’t really see how the spider will get any food to eat back there. When Morris was driving, a huge spider and its web got caught on morris’ hat and the Dutch lady was panicking.