The main focus of the Invertebrate Department is on the production of feeding insects, such as Locusts and Mealworms, for the various amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles at the Breeding and Wildlife Centres. These insects are an essential component of the smaller animals diets and provide the larger animals with some welcomed variety.

Unlike many of the larger animals breeding, keeping and displaying invertebrates can be extremely difficult due to their short lifecycles and seasonal availability as a result the occupants of the display tanks at the Wildlife Centre are change regularly to ensure that they remain active.

First Record for the UAE

During a joint survey between staff from the Breeding Centre and staff from the Pest Control Section of the Dubai Municipality, tadpole shrimps, Triops cancriformis (Bosc, 1801), were found to inhabit areas in Sharjah Emirate. Tadpole shrimps are used in biological mosquito control programmes and it was necessary to establish whether and which of these crustaceans do occur in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before any were brought in to be used in mosquito biological control. Although tadpole shrimps have been found in other countries on the Arabian Peninsula such as Saudi Arabia and Oman, their distribution in the UAE has still to be confirmed.

The tadpole shrimps (Phylum: Arthropoda (segmented legs), Subphylum: Crustacea, Class: Branchiopoda, Order: Notostraca) are a group of crustaceans that originated millions of years ago during the Cambrian era. These crustaceans have remained virtually unchanged for this time and remain so today.

Their general structure consists of a flattened shield like carapace, a fused pair of internal compound eyes, a segmented abdomen and paired tail filaments. They also have paired ventral appendages called phyllopods. These phyllopods beat in a wavelike motion from front to back and act as propulsion for the animal. A ventral midline food groove is found at the base of the paired phyllopods, and this effectively funnels microscopic food particles up to the animal's mouth.
These animals are found in ephemeral pools (temporary, astatic freshwater pools) where they are omnivorous, and even cannibalistic feeders. They usually dig around in the mud using the front part of their shield in order to find food. They will feed on plankton, worms, chironomid (midge) larvae, weak tadpoles and freshly moulted tadpole shrimps. Tadpole shrimps normally swim with their ventral side down, but are sometimes forced by a lack of oxygen to swim upside down with their gill-like phyllopods close under the surface of the water.