We are nose to nose with a giant hissing cockroach, so close that we can see the mites preying, in some bug-eat-bug kind of way, on its underside.

With plates of carefully overlapped armour, its antennae waving menacingly, its body is all of a foot long (well, at least three inches).

Do my nine-year-old nephew, David, and I want to hold it? We’ve already been brave enough to stroke the colourful fruit beetles and let stick insects wander over our hands (rather tickly really), but the thought of caressing this creepiest of crawlies leaves us hissing, not the cockroach.

We are in the BugWorld Experience that opened in Albert Dock, Liverpool, on Wednesday, becoming the first UK attraction of its kind, although it’s based on similar operations in North America.

It is appropriate that the home of the Beatles now has insects of another type, I say to David. He shrugs — he’s barely heard of the pop version.

He likes the bugs, though. It’s not just that the red-spotted assassin bug, which can temporarily blind you with its venom, and the black widow spider, with a bite 15 times more poisonous than a rattlesnake, are compelling in a horrible kind of way.

There are some interesting facts to learn about the world’s 18 billion billion bugs. Did you know that a leech has 32 brains?

Or that you can tell the sex of a Seychelles millipede by counting seven segments back on its body: no legs means that’s where the boys’ bits are.

I can see David storing these fun facts away for future playground banter as we wander through the exhibits, from a rainforest to the savannah. Even the everyday British home hasn’t been forgotten, where we find more cockroaches in the cupboard, weevils in the bread bin and a common house spider in the bathroom sink.

What really draws David in, though, are the interactive games designed to appeal to someone who is as at home with a Nintendo DS and a Wii as, well, a mite in a bed.

They are all strategically placed, so that by the Egyptian dung beetles, clever little things that were imported into Australia because they are so efficient at rolling dung into a ball and burying it, is a computer game where you race to get your dung ball to the finish line.

And just after we’ve been introduced to the emperor scorpion and compared the size of its huge claws with the death stalker scorpion’s small ones (the smaller the claw, the worse the sting), there’s a “dodge the claw” game.

BugWorld isn’t huge but it is very well done. Everywhere you go, you see the world through an insect’s eyes, with “tour guides” to tell you about them, plenty of hands-on exhibits and the encounter zone, where the brave can handle the insects.

Then it’s time to grab a snack — but the chilli locustsand oven-baked tarantula aren’t exactly to my taste. Grateful that there has been a run on the spider dish, and that we don’t have to taste it in the interest of research, we settle for BBQ-flavoured worms.

Once you get your brain around the thought of what you’re eating, they’re quite tasty, in a crunchy kind of way.

Bite-sized facts

A leaf-cutter ant can lift 20 times its own body weight Male millipedes attract females by rippling their legs in a particular way Frégate beetles give off a smelly defence chemical, which stains human skin purple Some cockroaches can survive on the glue on the back of postage stamps

Need to know

See The BugWorld Experience (0151- 7084938, www.bugworldexperience.co.uk) — £10.95 per adult, £6.25 per child, £30 for a family of four. For more family-friendly Liverpool, visit the U-boat Story (0151-330 1000, www.u-boatstory.co.uk) about German submarine U-534, which has been divided into sections for easier viewing and with lots of interactive displays.

The Beatles Story (0151-709 1963, www.beatlesstory.com) takes you on a 4-D, experience of their music, i Stay The Hard Days Night hotel (0151-236 1964, www.harddaysnighthotel.com), a funky Beatles-themed property, has rooms from £85.

Travel Virgin Trains (08457 222 333, www.virgintrains.co.uk) has services from Euston to Liverpool.

More information www.enw.co.uk/visit

Times recommends

• Oasis of the Seas: the Times review
• The 20 best new year party places to stay
• Green Spaces 2009: are you the winning writer?