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The praying mantis extends its limbs to reach for its next meal, often another insect.
Photo courtesy of S.C. State Museum
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The animatronic locust leaves its perch to rise over the heads of visitors, spreading its wings as if to take flight.
Photo courtesy of S.C. State Museum
Poor, misunderstood bugs.
We may not love them, but they are our allies. They pollinate our flowers and crops, help keep the environment clean, and act as essential cogs in the balance of nature. If we could truly appreciate them, maybe they wouldn’t creep us out so much.
A giant opportunity to maximize your bug IQ is the newest exhibit at the South Carolina State Museum. The animatronic critters in “Bugs! Giant Robotic Creatures,” on display through Sept. 7, make a big impact at 40 to 120 times their actual size.
“To see these larger-than-life animals, and to have these things as big as they are, people can read the information panel and really see, ‘Oh, that’s what it means by segmented leg,’” says Dave Cicimurri, the museum’s natural history curator.
Magnified details of insect heads reveal curiosities that are normally far too small for human eyes to see. Push a button on one display, and you can gape inside a dragonfly’s mouth when it opens its toothy jaws to snag the next meal.
Crickets chirrup peacefully as you explore bug after bug. Along the way are opportunities to snap an unusual selfie—strike a pose, for example, with an enormous black widow spider looming behind you.
The showstoppers of the exhibit are the huge robotic bugs in their habitats:
- A swallowtail caterpillar (coincidentally, related to our state butterfly, the Eastern tiger swallowtail) creeps along at the entrance to the exhibit.
- A locust rises up dramatically and spreads its wings overhead.
- The stick bug comes with not only magnified size but also amplified sound, as if its volume has increased to match its oversized body.
- A praying mantis stretches up toward the ceiling, some 20 feet high.
- A pair of fighting beetles, roughly the size of hippos, combat in head-to-head battle.
Prefer real bugs over robots? The “Bugs!” exhibit also features a live bug zoo with scorpions and tarantulas, among other creatures.
Bugs make beautiful art, too. A portrait gallery provides close-up photos of textures, shapes and colors on insect bodies—spider eyes, a butterfly wing, a caterpillar’s midsection.
Kids can take on the challenge of interactive puzzles and trivia games, including how to identify insects by the sounds they make, such as a honeybee’s buzz or a cockroach’s hiss. An activity guide will lead them through the exhibit on a scavenger hunt.
With about one million identified and named species of insects around the globe, plus estimates of millions more yet to be identified, the world of bugs is full of details to discover, Cicimurri says.
“I’m not sure anybody really appreciates a cockroach or mosquitoes or ticks,” he says. “But, hopefully, people will come away with an appreciation for insect diversity.”
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Get there
The South Carolina State Museum is located at 301 Gervais St. in Columbia. Bugs! Giant Robotic Creatures runs through Sept. 7.
Hours: The museum opens at 10 a.m. Monday–Saturday and noon Sunday. Closing times are 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday; 8 p.m. Tuesday; and 6 p.m. Saturday.
Admission: Tickets for general museum entry plus blockbuster exhibit admission are $13.95 for adults (ages 13–61), $12.95 for seniors and $11.95 for children (ages 3–12).
Details: (803) 898-4921