SINGAPORE – A new tour at the Singapore Zoo to celebrate its 50th anniversary lets visitors get up close with the likes of the green bottle blue tarantula and the red-winged green giant stick insect. They can even handle the invertebrates, offering them a rare glimpse of how the zoo cares for such creatures.

The tour, which costs $118 per person on weekdays and $148 on weekends, will start on Aug 6 and can be booked via the zoo’s website.

Ms Delvinder Kaur, an animal care officer at Mandai Wildlife Group who helped to develop the tour, said the main objective is to bring visitors closer to invertebrates and educate them about their importance in the ecosystem.

“They’ve got their own likeable points,” said Ms Kaur, who specialises in invertebrates. “The tour is more about showcasing invertebrates in a different light.”

Invertebrates are animals that do not have a backbone, and they make up 95 per cent of all animal species.

Visitors on the tour will be taken into a showroom that regular ticket holders do not have access to.

They will have an opportunity to feed and handle various species.

If that is too much outside of their comfort zone, they can have a go at identifying butterfly eggs, instead, and try to release adult butterflies.

Ms Charissa Yang, a 25-year-old consultant who went on the tour when it was unveiled to the media on Wednesday, found it an eye-opening experience.

“Having the chance to hear more about the life of the insects and their role in the ecosystem made them seem less scary to me,” said Ms Yang, who is usually not comfortable around insects.

The Singapore Zoological Gardens opened on Jun 27, 1973.

From its small beginnings, with 272 animals across 72 species, it is now home to more than 4,200 animals from over 300 species.

Mr Mike Barclay, group chief executive of Mandai Wildlife Group, said one concern is that more and more of the animals it works with are being threatened in the wild due to factors such as pollution and hunting.

“We are very clear that we have the responsibility to help wildlife thrive beside people,” he said, “and so we do a lot of work here around education and advocacy, trying to set a better practice towards sustainability.”