YOUNGSTERS can get their hands on a snake, maggots and flatulent bugs at a visitor attraction this week.

Visitors to the Life Science Centre, in Newcastle, can learn more about the disgusting habits of animals in the Meet Mr Bug workshop.

The 30-minute sessions will be run by Mr Bug - known to his friends as Matthew Lewis, a qualified zoologist from Edinburgh.

They will include sniffing a flatulent cockroach, dipping an arm into a vat of maggots and, for children aged over five, touching a live snake.

Mr Lewis said: "The workshop is a chance for visitors to meet animals from around the world, and find out why they might disgust us - and maybe why they shouldn't.

"People often think the fact that cockroaches suffer from flatulence is disgusting, but it's down to the fact that they have hundreds of millions of bacteria living in their gut.

"The bacteria feed on the food which the cockroach can't digest and give off vast amounts of gas, which makes for very flatulent cockroaches."

The workshops, taking place each day until Friday tie in with the centre's current exhibition, Grossology, The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body, which reveals the reasons behind some of the more disgusting bodily functions of human beings.

For further details, contact 0191-243 8210 or visit the website, www.lifescience centre. org.uk/grossology

Published: 23/08/2004