Insectarium To Open In NO This Fall...

[alon504]

Truly a unique addition for the New Orleans area and the South, as well... http://www.auduboninstitute.com/insect/index.php

[NCB]

Truly a unique addition for the New Orleans area and the South, as well... http://www.auduboninstitute.com/insect/index.php

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Great!

Im sure it will be a great addition to the Audubon Zoo.

[Mith242]

That's very interesting. I guess the closest thing I've seen was a butterfly musuem (I can't remember the scientific term) in Houston.

[alon504]

Here's more from today's Times-Picayune...

Coming soon to a museum near you: BUGS

They're creepy. They're crawly. They bite, chew and sting. And, if the Audubon Nature Institute has its way, they'll lure swarms of visitors to New Orleans every year.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

By Bruce Eggler

Staff writer

If everything had gone as Ron Forman and his colleagues at the Audubon Nature Institute hoped, the Audubon Insectarium would be celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

Instead, after nearly 15 years of reworked plans, false starts and unforeseen delays, the insectarium is only now starting to take final form in the U.S. Custom House on Canal Street.

But as workers continue installing exhibits in preparation for a projected mid-2006 opening, advance visitors can begin to get a sense of why Audubon officials have bet $20 million on an untested idea: that each year hundreds of thousands of children and parents would

want to visit an attraction telling the story of the world's most numerous and varied animals.

Ever since the idea of creating an insect museum was announced, skeptics have said a "bug house" would never have the same appeal as the highly successful Audubon Zoo and Audubon Aquarium of the Americas.

But even in its incomplete state, it's clear that an exhibit such as Life Underground, a re-creation of a clump of garden soil that is 100 times its natural size, is likely to appeal to children. The darkened, low-ceilinged exhibit will offer "the real dirt on dirt," along with features such as an animated centipede, part of a decaying mouse and a trapdoor spider that bursts from a hidden compartment as visitors approach.

The Louisiana swamp exhibit will give visitors a chance to stick their heads into a plastic bubble in the middle of a tank of diving beetles........

And, for the rest of the article... http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/ind...08870174010.xml

[alon504]

Looks like the opening has had, yet, another delay, but, in the end I think New Orleans will have a new awesome museum, in a very unique set-up, and in a very unique building.....

[NCB]

That looks great.

It seems that New Orleans wants to also be known as a nice place to take your family Including your kids.

With the Louisiana Childrens Museum, the Zoo, the Aquarium, and now the Insectarium, there will be plenty of interesting and fun things for kids to do around New Orleans.

Though it will take alot of work and time before N.O. would be able to be known across the country, and world, as a tourist destination that is safe enough, and entertaining enough for kids.

[alon504]

The US Customs Building in New Orleans:

[TSmith]

I thought this was a pretty clever and funny idea mentioned in the article... "In a bit of sly potty humor, the dung beetles exhibit has been positioned just outside the restrooms."

[alon504]

I thought this was a pretty clever and funny idea mentioned in the article...  "In a bit of sly potty humor, the dung beetles exhibit has been positioned just outside the restrooms."

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I noticed that as well....