Springtails: the new meerkats

Did anyone else watch Life in the Undergrowth last night? Wasn't it brilliant? I sat entranced as The Nation's Dad (David Attenborough) did an admirable job of showing that invertebrates are as cool as I thought they were when I was a six year old boy putting wriggly things in jam jars.

Who would have thought that slug sex could be so damn, well, sexy! If I could do what they do, I'd be at it all the time! No wonder they're allways so... er... sluggish during the day. Video clip.

There was something very disturbing about watching a giant centipede dangling from a roof of a cave in order to catch and devour it's favourite prey: live bats. Just the idea of an insect that eats mammals, rather than just feeding off them, seems horrifyingly wrong.

And move over meerkats, there's a new little creature that's set to win the hearts of the nation: springtails! They're only the size of a pinhead, but they're as cute as a button, and they can jump the equivalent of a man backflipping over the Eiffel Tower. I'd like to see a crummy meerkat do that! Video Clip.