Featuring hands-on activities, dramatic specimen displays, colorful video and graphics, and even live animals, this exhibition draws on the latest scientific research to explore arthropods’ extraordinary evolutionary success and their impact on our lives. Evolving for more than 500 million years, these creatures range in size from giant king crabs to microscopic mites, represent over eighty percent of all animal species, and have colonized every corner of the planet.
Ants and Termites: Nature’s Super Organisms
Ants and Termites: Nature’s Super Organisms is a small exhibit in the Arthropods gallery that explores these ancient, diverse, and ubiquitous insect groups, inhabiting all of Earth’s continents, save Antarctica, and living in sometimes massive colonies that are among the most interesting and complex societies in the animal kingdom.
Orb-Weavers: Masters of the Spider World
Orb-Weavers: Masters of the Spider World is a small exhibit in the Arthropods gallery that examines the evolution of the orb web and explores how capture strategies used by its arachnid builders have shaped orb web design.
The Rockefeller Beetles
The Rockefeller Beetles is a small exhibit in the Arthropods gallery that features hundreds of specimens from David Rockefeller’s collection and recounts the story of a man whose childhood pursuit grew into a lifelong passion.
What's in a Name?
This station of the What's in a Name? onsite exhibit includes an interactive kiosk about honeybees. Learn more on the What's in a Name? website and download the free e-book.