Beavers to Weavers: Celebrating the beautiful things made by animals

Social insects such as many bees, wasps, ants and termites, build nests together out of several ‘cells’. Sometimes millions of insects work together, making huge homes. These buildings may contain stores of food, eggs, babies, and even gardens. This wasp nest was built inside the armour of a dead armadillo.      

Solitary insects, who live on their own or in small groups, make tiny homes. Insects may use leaves, petals or mud to make their homes. Some are built inside plants or underground for extra protection. Leafcutter Bees cut neat sections of leaf to make their homes with. They glue them together with their saliva. They build their homes in safe places like holes in rotting wood or old walls.     

This beautiful object looks like a shell, but is actually the egg case of an Argonaut, a type of octopus. The female Argonaut secretes the egg case from special tentacles. She lays her eggs in it, and also shelters in it herself.   

Mermaid’s purses are the egg cases of some sharks, rays and skates. Before a female lays an egg, her special ‘shell gland’ surrounds it with a case made of protein. The egg case is tough and well camouflaged. The little tendrils on mermaid’s purses help them attach to seaweed.      

These miniature nests are coated in bits of lichen, adding camouflage. Spider silk helps hold the nests together.     

A Tailorbird sews leaves together to make a safe place for her nest. She uses her sharp beak to pierce holes through the edge of leaves. She joins edges together using plant fibres or spider silk. This becomes a camouflaged cup to build her nest in.     

Long-tailed Tits are woodland birds who build their nests in the forks of trees or bushes. Their nests look like soft, cosy slippers. A pair spend between 1-3 weeks making their nest. They gather lots of material, including moss, lichen, spider egg cases and feathers.    

Marble galls are growths on plants caused by Gall Wasps. There are lots of different types and each makes its gall in a particular type of plant, in this case the stem of an oak tree. A female Gall Wasp injects her eggs into a plant with an ‘ovipositor’, which looks like a sharp needle. It’s thought that special chemicals injected by Gall Wasps make the plant grow differently, forming a gall. The gall is a safe home as well as a source of food for the babies.  

The Robin's pincushion (also called a Rose Bedeguar Gall) is a red, round, hairy growth that can be seen on wild rose buds. It is caused by the larvae of a tiny gall wasp that feeds on the host plant, but causes little damage.  

The Truffle Gall is named because of the similarity of it's skin to that of certain species of truffle. It is caused by The Truffle Gall Wasp and are made on oak trees.  

The cherry gall wasp produces growths, or 'galls', on oak leaves that look like red cherries. Inside the gall, the larvae of the wasp feed on the host tissues, but cause little damage.  

The Eggar moth caterpillar pupates on the ground inside a silken cocoon, the exterior of which is hard and yellowish, and resembles an acorn, hence the moth's name.  

The Burnet moth species overwinters as a larva. The larva pupates in early summer in a papery cocoon attached to a grass stem.  

Small animals like insects and worms can make nice snacks for predators. To defend themselves, some make suits of armour. Others camouflage themselves by using materials around them. Some marine worms build tubes around themselves, keeping them safe while they filter food from the sea.  Sand Mason Worms make their tubes with mucus, sand, and shells. Trumpet Worms mix a specially secreted glue with sand and shell fragments. Tube Worms build their armour by secreting calcium which hardens.    

Most molluscs are well protected by shells. Some molluscs add extra layers of defence to stay safe.  Lots of molluscs can produce pearls to defend themselves against parasites or grit getting into their shells. Some types, such as oysters, are farmed to produce the pearls people use as jewels. Tiny Buddha-shaped objects were inserted into this oyster. In an attempt to defend itself the mussel has grown pearl over the objects, making miniature pearl Buddha figures.     

These animals make themselves bigger, spinier and more camouflaged by cementing objects to their shells as they grow. Carrier Shells use their ‘foot’ to hold an object at the edge of its shell. Then they make new shell material that hardens and fixes the object in place.    

This tiny arrow is a ‘gypsobelum’, or love dart, from a Brown-lipped Snail. Some slugs and snails release love darts during courtship. Snails and slugs also perform courtship dances together before mating.