Bugs Alive! gathers different species of live arthropods, including insects, crustaceans, arachnids, centipedes, and millipedes.
Species from Africa, Australia, Central America and Madagascar will be displayed in terrariums evoking their natural habitats. Take a bug's-eye look at a black widow spider spinning her silk web, African giant black millipedes curling in self-defense and the iridescent glow of the scorpion without the worry of getting nipped on the nose!
Other species include:
- Madagascar hissing cockroaches, which make a distinctive hissing sound when they're threatened by forcing air through holes along the sides of their bodies.
- Walkingsticks, nature's masters of camouflage. They not only look like twigs and leaves, but they 'act' like them, too, hanging motionless or moving slowly as if swaying in the breeze so as not to attract predators.
- A vinegaroon, an arachnid that sprays a pungent, vinegar-like mist to defend itself.
- Jade-headed buffalo beetles, white-eyed assassin bugs and a 100-legger a giant desert centipede from the American southwest.
Information panels discuss where these animals fit in the natural world, how there are no good or bad bugs, and how arthropods are critical to the functioning of life on our planet.
Bugs Alive! is supported through a generous gift from the Walter Schroeder Foundation.
Exhibit Accessibility & Social Stories
In the Bugs Alive! exhibit, you can view live bugs from around the world that are in terrariums, which are clear plastic cases in which the bugs live. There may be a volunteer in this exhibit that has live bugs you can explore up close and let crawl on your hand. These bugs are not dangerous; they do not sting or bite. There is a captioned video and a smell station where you can push a button to release the smells of various bugs.