Want to sleep with the fishes? Not a threat – just London Zoo’s invitation to a slumber party at BUGS! Which stands for Biodiversity Underpinning Global Survival, so it’s home to snakes, frogs, said fishes and even the odd mammal (truly odd in the case of naked mole rats) as well as all the creepy-crawlies you’d expect.
Held on just a few weekend nights over the summer hols, these sleepovers are for kids accompanied by adults prepared to doss down on the floor with black widows and jewel wasps for neighbours. Just rock up with your sleeping bags, camping mats and toothbrushes then let your hosts take care of the rest.
Before and after the not-very-long sleeping bit, there’s much to do: quality time with BUGS! residents (Sam the giant African land snail and Rosie the Mexican red-knee bird-eating spider on the night we stayed); designing your own T-shirt; and a guided morning stroll round the gloriously empty zoo, before the public are let in. That’s right, with none of the pressure to keep moving along that you get as a mere day tripper: a big plus in the zoo’s more immersive exhibits such as In with the Lemurs, Rainforest Life and the just-opened In with the Spiders.
Our new favourite animal is the mustachioed emperor tamarin. It’s also lovely having breakfast with the zoo’s airy cafeteria all to yourself – well, yourself and up to 59 other lucky people, if the sleepover’s sold out, which they do tend to be. The highlight is the night tour: our informative allocated keeper with a GSOH led us round lots of exhibits, shining his red-light torch into enclosures to catch sight of ZSL’s party animals. Who knew aardvarks get frisky around 11pm? And apparently (we were tucked up in bag by then) sloths are totally hyper between 3am and 5am. Fun facts, staying up late, goody bags and sneak peaks… what more could a seven to 11-year-old Twilight Explorer ask for?