What is a Mini-beast?

What is a Mini-beast?

        A mini-beast is basically a ‘small animal’. Most mini-beasts fall into the category of ‘Invertebrates’ or animals with no backbone.

This includes animals such as:
• Worms
• Snails and Slugs
• Corals and Sponges
• Starfish and Sea Urchins
• Crabs, Crayfish and Prawns
• Millipedes and Centipedes
• Arachnids (spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks, pseudoscorpions, etc)
• Insects (fleas, flies, moths, butterflies, lice, grasshoppers, stick insects, preying mantis, beetles, bugs, termites, wasps, bees, ants etc)

Why are mini-beasts important  to humans and the environment?

        Mini-beasts are important for millions of reasons. Every different type or ‘species’ of mini-beast plays a very important role in the environment, even some of the yucky ones!

For example:
• Worms, dung beetles and flies keep our grassy pastures and farm soil healthy, making it possible for us to keep cattle, sheep and horses.
• Butterflies, moths, bees, beetles and flies pollinate our crops making it possible for us to produce food to survive! Bees make honey forus too!
• Dung Beetles destroy millions of dung pats all over Australia reducing fly populations!
• Lady beetles devour aphids and other pests that can destroy our crops and garden plants.
• Sponges and Corals keep the ocean clean working like a pool filter.
• Caterpillars, snails, slugs and grubs love to chew on our favourite plants, crops and trees, they can actually be good for the plant, removing foliage and actually encouraging stronger faster re-growth.
• 1 spider can eat up to 1000 insects per year including flies, cockroaches and moths that may sometimes be a pest around our homes.
• We can tell how healthy a pond, creek or dam is by the amount of mini-beasts found living in and around it. This can even tell us important information about water quality.
• Mini-beasts are eaten in different ways in almost every culture on earth. In Australia, we eat an abundance of ‘seafood’ or marine mini-beasts including oysters, crabs, lobster, prawns, octopus, scallops, calamari and squid. Of course our indigenous people enjoyed a variety of mini-beasts including Witchetty grubs, honeypot ants and native stingless bee honey. In other countries around the world such as parts of Africa, insects are eaten regularly and form a large portion of their diet.