10-05-2025
Tuning into beetle mania: At the Audubon insectarium in New Orleans
Leaf insects are masters of disguise, staying hidden while they feed and rest. Cactus longhorn beetles are food specialists, surviving (both as larvae and adults) solely on cactus. The desert ironclad beetle defends itself by playing dead when startled.
These are just some of the astonishingly varied insects, critical to life on Earth, that one may encounter and come to appreciate at the Audubon Aquarium and Insectarium in New Orleans, Louisiana.
This stellar living museum underwent a $41-million redesign and reopened in 2023.
As one journeys through the insectarium, entomologists help one experience insects through all five senses. The sense of sight is deployed in the viewing of live specimens in glass chambers, where one can observe body shapes and behaviours.
The sense of touch and hearing are employed as one is offered the chance to handle, and listen to, certain creatures. One may hold a Madagascar hissing cockroach, for instance, light as a feather in one's palm. When disturbed, it forces air through its breathing apertures, to signal warning or a plea for help to its roach friends, or in an attempt to deter a predator.
Hollywood loves this docile, distinctive and easy-to-handle bug, I am told. When filmmakers are determined to avoid using CGI, these are the creatures released, in films ranging from Bug (2006) to Men in Black (1997).
Next, smell and taste are harnessed in the Bug Appetit room, which invites visitors to sample cheddar bacon crickets, and chocolate chirp cookies, challenging our notions of what we consider edible. As the signboard reasons, if we're willing to eat crabs, crawfish and lobsters, which are also arthropods, why not extend our scope to include grasshoppers and ants? They offer more protein and less fat per 100 gm than livestock, and require less land, water and feed to breed. They are packed with vitamins and minerals, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
Crickets contain high levels of calcium; termites are rich in iron. A 100-gm serving of giant silkworm-moth larvae contains one's daily requirements of copper, zinc, iron and riboflavin. It's why they remain integral to traditional cuisines in large parts of the world (Africa, Asia, Latin America).
The renowned Audubon institute, set up in 1990 on the banks of the Mississippi River, is named for the legendary American ornithologist and artist John James Audubon (1785-1851), who lived and worked for years in Louisiana. Its aquarium is home to more than 3,600 animals across 250 species. The 17,000-sq-ft butterfly pavilion, a new addition, holds hundreds of free-flying butterflies. Visitors can watch as they drink nectar, fly around, even land on one's shoulder.
Across the centre, signboards, often interactive, impel the visitor beyond ignorance, fear and revulsion and offer reminders that life on Earth would not survive without insects. They are vital pollinators. They drive waste disposal and the decomposition of the dead. In performing this function, they restore nutrients to the soil.
They are a food source, and play a vital role as predators, keeping other insect populations in check. They are tiny ecosystem engineers. Their digging, chewing and nesting can determine which plants will flourish where, and which will be pruned or weeded out.
So much of this tapestry is visible here. Minutes go by unnoticed as I observe a community of trap-jaw ants at work around their nest. As they cut, carry and transport leaves, their coordinated teamwork is remarkable.
In nature, as they say, lies a grand parable for us all.
