Carolyn C.
Yelp
I visited on Sunday, March 17th.
WOW WOW WOW! Definitely a state-of-the-art adult and child approved interactive museum. As someone who is covered in insect tattoos, I am a bit biased but still, it was incredible.
There are many features that are for children, however, there was plenty to see, feel, read and taste as an adult. As an adult who steers clear of children, I appreciated the added playground-esq interactive toys for children which acted as deploys so that we could hear the small lectures at the bug camp and the butterfly garden exhibition. Perfect location for the deploys, in my opinion.
At the insectarium you will learn about the insects that you encounter every day to the ones in other countries that you can only dream about touching or seeing from being in movies or pictures.
At the "Bug Appétit Cafe" you can taste edible insect cuisine--flavored crickets, candy covered mealworms, roasted waxworms and even desserts (cicada muffins or chocolate chip cricket cookies) with insects or insect protein powders.
The Butterfly Garden was truly impressive. It even looks over the Mississippi River which is the perfect backdrop when exploring the Butterfly Garden. You could easily see 100+ butterflies drinking nectar, taking naps, or simply majestically soaring around.
My only complaints are with the Butterfly Garden. (1) Entrance logistics need to be worked out. There needs to be a staff member on the outside of the entrance so that it doesn't keep opening every EFFING minute when we are trying to open the main door. So annoying. No lie, it took us over ten minutes to get through due to the amount of people who stepped closed to the entrance door to the waiting room. (2) There needs to be 2+ employees inside the butterfly garden since the children were grabbing, poking and touching the butterflies--I am assuming this is why many were damaged. Maybe having an info graphic poster on the negative aspects of touching the butterflies should be posted beforehand and throughout. Also, having a staff member that isn't afraid to speak up and toss a kid out would be apricated. Though I wanted to trip or smack the kids running and touching everything, it was still amazing (I did hiss at a few which made them focus on the crazy lady inside the butterfly enclosure instead of the butterflies--whatever works, ya know?). (3) There should be a limit of how many people can gain access to the butterfly room--there was NO ROOM to move. We were all on top of each other.
I highly recommend the Audubon Insectarium. It truly is a must see when in the area. It is located at the Audubon Aquarium and NOT AT THE ZOO.