Visitors will surely go bug-eyed over a new exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Bugs: Outside of the Box features larger-than-life models of beetles, dragonflies, butterflies, grasshoppers, and more crafted by Italian sculptor Lorenzo Possenti to show that insects are really more than what meets the naked eye.
The exhibit, which opens Oct. 23 and runs until March 27, is a travelling installation developed by Outhouse Exhibit Services and Possenti.
However, the exhibit’s Ottawa stop will be unique in that it will also feature specimens from the museum’s own national insect collection, which includes more than one million species.
The McLeod Street museum will also tap the expertise of its biologists, adding some interactive activities and displays of live insects, noted Dan Smythe, a representative at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Edward Wilson, the famous Harvard University entomologist has called bugs “the little things that rule the world,” and Robert Anderson, the Canadian Museum of Nature’s resident insect specialist, agrees.
“When you look at an insect with the naked eye, you can’t see all the fine little details and things that make up all the different kinds of insects,” says Anderson.
There are more insect species than any other kind of animal, according to Anderson, and these creepy crawlies are fundamental to the planet’s ecosystems.
“You know, if it weren’t for dung beetles in some parts of the world, the ecosystem would probably be knee-deep in poop of some kind,” says Anderson.
Possenti, the artist crafting the intricate models in the exhibit, said he shares Anderson’s enthusiasm for insects, but for different reasons.
Possenti says he is drawn to all strange-looking creatures.
Since he was a young boy, he says, he was always interested in freaks of nature not present in our world, like aliens, dinosaurs, and monsters.
During his adolescence, giant insects took the cake for Possenti.
“The stranger the bug, the better,” he says.
“I’m interested in the lines and efforts the larvae (go through) when they transform into adults,” said Possenti. “These details are still visible in the adults and I take care of these lines and shapes. They are very soft but they are important to me.”