Insectarium

Today we went somewhere we have never been before, the Insectarium. Last year the Audubon (zoo & aquarium) system of museums and parks expanded to include the Insectarium, which is one of the only museums of its kind in the world and has the largest collections of live and used to be alive insects in the country.

From the moment we walked into the lobby we were both captured by the bugs everywhere, the large marble entryway has wonderful metal chandeliers hanging down with little metal bugs crawling on them. There are pictuers of bugs, videos of bugs and sculptures of bugs. After we got our tickets and entered the hallway to the first room of exhibits Chance was caught again by two big dragonflies that fly back and forth while also going round and round above our heads.

Of course there is a bug motif but what about the real bugs? Well, they have plenty of those too. There was a giant ant farm (see above), giant beetles and spiders and leaf bugs and any other bug you can think of, we all touched big cockroaches and got up close and personal with a beetle that has big pinchers on his head (I can't remember his name).

The thing I really liked about this place is how each room has a different theme and they go all out not just a poster on the wall but the whole room will be transformed. Like the underground world, the ground was squishy, it was dark and cave like, the walls and ceiling was bumpy like it was made of rocks. There were live bugs in their habitats next to big fake bugs crawling in and out of the rocks. It was fun pretending we were really underground.

A favorite of Chance's was the VW Bug that he could drive (with one of our playgroup Moms in the back) it was located in a section of the museum that was made to look like a French Quarter building and described bugs in medicine, disease and extermination through the ages.

This is Chance getting an up close look at a kitchen cupboard and the bugs that live there (you don't want to know). They had lots of these bubbles giving you an up close look at displays and even inside insect cages.

About half way through they were giving out exotic samples. These don't look all that special but those things that look like chocolate chips are really chocolate covered crickets.

Evidently they taste like chocolate chips too because Chance ate two so fast I couldn't even get a picture quick enough, they were already in his mouth. I also tried oven roasted crickets (very tasty a little spicy) and cinnamon covered fried wormy things (yummy desert snack). You can't go to the Insectarium and not try at least one, they were really good, my question (which I'll ask next time) is how to you get them in the pan? Do you just throw them in, to you kill them first and if you do how they weren't squished which without chemicals is the only way I have ever considered killing a bug.


I think my favorite part was the end in the butterfly house. There was a elaborate system of doors and fans to get in and out, once we got in the air was heavy there was wonderful relaxing music playing with places to sit a pond with Koi and a bridge and flowers everywhere. Then you notice the butterflies, everywhere. They are on the ground and the walls, the flowers and fluttering all around. The Insectarium hatches their own cocoons so before we came in we were able to see butterflies working their way out of their cocoons. So today Chance learned that bugs come from eggs like birds, he called the cocoons eggs, then when we entered the butterfly house he jumped up and down when he realized these butterflies came from eggs just like we had seen in the previous room. It was awesome to see him learning science and biology and Lepidopterology - that's the study of butterflies and moths (learned a new word today) right before my eyes.